Indiana Alumni Magazine
Image courtesy NASA, John Frassanito and Associates
A New Vision
Scientists concerned about NASA's change of direction
By Scott Shackelford
Etched into the far wall of the Senate Science Committee’s chambers is a quote from Tennyson that reads “For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.” Since February 2005, senators in this room have been envisioning the future of space exploration. The debates took off when the new NASA Vision for Space Exploration was announced by the Bush administration in January 2004, nearly a year after the Columbia space shuttle accident.
Promising a return to the moon and manned voyages to Mars, Vision has attracted steadfast supporters and harsh critics in both political and scientific circles.
Vision calls for the retirement of the space shuttle by 2010. This is when the $100 billion International Space Station is scheduled to be completed, after 16 more flights. Assembly is set to resume in August with Atlantis. NASA’s shuttles are the only vehicles capable of finishing the half-done ISS, which when complete will be roughly the size of a 747.
The development of a new spacecraft dubbed the Crew Exploration Vehicle is also trumpeted by Vision. It will be used for orbital flights and manned lunar missions.
“Vision is a turning point for NASA — the first new launch vehicle in 30 years, and the first destinations for humans beyond Earth orbit since the Apollo days,” says Steven J. Dick, BA’71, MA’74, PhD’77, chief historian of NASA.
But it will be a costly turning point. Vision will be funded by reprogramming existing NASA resources. The Ccongressional Budget Office has found that Vision may cost as much as $61 billion more than its 2020 projections.
Congress has so far been supportive of Vision, passing it with only 17 dissenting votes in the House of Representatives last December. Still, uncertainties have brought criticism from both sides of the aisle. The greatest source of concern has been cuts in long-term aeronautics and basic-science programs in favor of the new-exploration agenda.
“Some argue that exploration and science are one and the same, and that when it comes to spaceflight, exploration equals science,” says Dick. “I believe that routine science can lead to discovery but often does not. Exploration can also lead to discovery, but not necessarily. Magellan was an explorer, not a scientist. NASA has to be both.”
Vision’s ongoing implementation is affecting scientific research not only at NASA, but also among researchers and students across the nation. Indiana University is no exception. Already, some scientists at IU are benefiting from Vision, while others are grappling with funding cuts as priorities change. This is having an impact on the amount and type of cutting-edge scientific research taking place at IU and other institutions across the state.
A BOON OR BUST FOR BASIC SCIENCE?
Like most astronomers, IU Professor Catherine Pilachowski does not know the constellations. “For me, the elegance of math and physics has always been so beautiful that I’ve never taken the time to learn them,” she says.
Professor Catherine Pilachowski. Photo by Tyagan Miller.
Pilachowski discovered the romance of space exploration at an early age with the grainy images of the Apollo landings that captured the nation’s attention and the collective imagination of the young. Throughout her career, she has been pushing the scientific envelope, researching everything from light pollution to the evolution of stars and galaxies. Pilachowski, who holds the Kirkwood Chair of Astronomy at IU Bloomington, is now also active in a different direction. Long an ardent supporter of NASA, Pilachowski testified before the President’s Commission on Space Exploration in her capacity as the president of the American Astronomical Society.
“The goal of my testimony was to stress that science and exploration go together,” she says. “Astronomers put a lot of effort every decade into identifying the most important scientific questions. Those priorities need to be folded into the exploration program, and that’s something that is not happening enough so far.”
Vision calls for certain scientific missions to be delayed or cut outright. An example is the Jupiter Icy Moon Mission due to study Europa, considered the top astronomical priority by the National Academy of Sciences because of the moon’s water and consequent chance of finding life. Climate science missions, such as Glory, which investigates extreme weather and global warming, will have to be postponed or canceled. Cuts to initiatives in nanotechnology and hypersonics research, notably at the Glenn Research Center in Ohio, have also been announced. Even flagship programs such as the Hubble Space Telescope face cancellation.
“The telescope is my favorite NASA-supported experiment,” says Susan Klein, a biophysicist at IU Bloomington. “The immediate images and information gleaned have been awesome. And we have barely begun to mine the data.” Sentiments such as these have led members of Congress to champion saving the Hubble, and a 17th shuttle flight could service the telescope in early 2008.
Overall, this year NASA will spend $5.3 billion on science, a 1.5 percent annual increase compared to the 8 to 9 percent originally slated. Through 2010 the agency will provide $3.1 billion less than previously promised with certain grants being cut next year by another 15 to 20 percent. This varies by discipline and state. At least one IU program, however, is expected to benefit.
IU CYCLOTRON FACILITY
Since 1992 NASA has used the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility’s Radiation Effects Research Program to test new components for radiation hardiness. This ensures that when a charged particle hits an off-the-shelf transistor in outer space, it won’t ruin a multi-billion-dollar mission. The program was expanded with a $2 million congressional appropriation in 2001.
“All electronic systems intended for use on board the space shuttle and the International Space Station are tested at the IUCF,” says Barbara Von Przewoski, who heads RERP. “These have included parts intended for the $3.4 billion Cassini mission to Saturn, the Mars Rover program, and the Deep Impact mission.”
Given the longer and more hazardous missions that astronauts face with Vision, the IUCF will also become involved in testing the long-term effects of radiation on the human body. This includes creating a simulated solar storm with the IU School of Medicine providing immunological analysis to develop radiation protection protocols.
NASA already tests all the electronic equipment intended for manned missions at IUCF, and so, with the expansion of these programs under Vision, business is expected to boom. “I remember the excitement and euphoria that went with putting the first human footprint on the moon in 1969,” says Przewoski. “Then and now, manned spaceflight presents a formidable challenge — one that the IUCF is helping to face.”
While the Cyclotron work may blossom under Vision, other IU projects face problems.
LIFE SCIENCES
Jeffrey Alberts, a professor of psychology at IUB, has been working with NASA since the early 1980s. He has conducted three spaceflight experiments in developmental biology — the “pregnant rats in space” studies. First flown on Biosputnik, a NASA-Soviet joint program, Alberts’s work continued on the shuttle. The project’s aim is to determine the effect that gravity has on the development of life. The project could now be in jeopardy.
Professor Jeffrey Alberts. Photo by Tyagan Miller.
“My bias is rooted in NASA’s lack of commitment and loss of focus,” says Alberts. “The life sciences, which NASA has touted as its highest priority, are now trivialized in the new rhetoric.”
Since mid-2004, Alberts has traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with representatives from the National Research Council. “It’s not the kind of excitement I like,” he says.
Other life-science researchers at IU studying gravity and spaceflight are suffering losses of support, in some cases amounting to several million dollars.
NASA earmarked $5 million beginning in 2005 for the Indiana-Princeton-Tennessee Astrobiology Institute, which is directed by IUB biogeochemist Lisa Pratt. Since joining the IUB geological sciences faculty in 1987, Pratt has been active in finding life in extreme environments.
The IPTAI aims to recommend to NASA how best to search for life on or below the Martian surface. They do this by exploring miles deep in the Earth, such as in South Africa’s Ulu gold mine or Antarctica. “Martian bacteria could have a very slow metabolism that would make finding life on Mars difficult, but I think that we will do it in our lifetimes,” says Pratt.
But IPTAI may not be renewed. Funding for astrobiology was not included in the latest budget submitted to Congress by the Bush administration. The loss of such programs would mark a sharp turn in the history of the space program, which has been credited with a long list of practical accomplishments much in evidence in everyday life.
SCIENCE & SPIN-OFFS
NASA has long been a driver for scientific research. Albert A. Harrison, author of Spacefaring: The Human Dimension, has found that every dollar spent on Apollo translated into seven to eight dollars returned to the economy in new goods and services. Everything from the CAT scanner to freeze-dried food, Velcro and hydrogen fuel cells were invented to get, in the end, 12 humans to the moon (see chart).
Through manned and unmanned missions, NASA scientists have transformed the world. In 2004 NASA was directly or indirectly responsible for 8 percent of all scientific discoveries made worldwide.
Bush argued that Vision continues this tradition and will bring new tangible benefits to Americans. The worry of some researchers is that, with the refocusing of NASA on manned exploration, science could be marginalized in the scramble.
DIPPING INTO THE FUTURE
The Vision means more than the retirement of the shuttle and the revamping of how NASA approaches scientific research. It will affect what research goes on and what is taught at IU and at other universities.
“Some students could suffer,” says Alberts. “Opportunities are disappearing, and support for them is being reduced.” NASA has canceled a major solicitation for astronomy grant proposals that could lead to fewer opportunities for students pursuing astronomical research.
“I don’t know what the future will bring, but I am concerned,” says Pilachowski. “If research funding is cut, it could mean fewer students choosing careers in science and technology, which will have repercussions for economic competitiveness.”
After the announcement of Vision and with the success of the recent two Mars Rovers, though, enrollment in technical subjects at colleges across the country jumped several percentage points.
“NASA still inspires,” says Dick. The fact that it had over 17 billion hits on its Web site in 2004, a 68 percent Gallup approval rating for more moon missions, and 5,000 letters of interest from industry is a testament to the public and the private sector’s continued interest in space. Scientific research will go forward at NASA with 55 missions currently in orbit and 34 in design phases.
Some at IU and across Indiana will benefit from Vision as overall funding has increased; others will not. The challenge facing NASA today is balancing competing priorities, being true to its seminal history of manned space flight, as well as its dedication to pushing back the frontiers of science.
It is too early to say what the ultimate impact of Vision will be on IU, to say nothing of the state of Indiana, the nation, or the future of space exploration. But it is essential for research administrators
and scientists to be involved in the public policy process, including testifying before the Senate Science Committee. Shaping the vision of the world, and helping to realize the wonders that could be, has become another task for IU scientists, not only in the lab, but also in Washington, D.C. 
When he is not watching reruns of Star Trek, Scott Shackelford, BA’05, a native Hoosier, is busy earning his master’s degree in international relations at the University of Cambridge. Next year he will start law school at Stanford University.
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