Some say NASA is abandoning the Moon.  The future of manned spaceflight is unclear right now, and many are experiencing losses of jobs, but I want to look at something else:  Who cares about the beauty of real scientific exploration?  Judging by participation in the Lunar Science Forum this year, I would say a lot of people.  Is the Moon ‘dead’?  A resounding NO, judging from the highest attendance yet for the meeting, the amazing science results, and the many young faces of the Next Generation of Lunar Scientists and Engineers interested in the Moon.  They are not going anywhere, and that message is loud and clear!

Forked impact melt. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

I guess I should give the disclaimer that I work at the NLSI but also that I used to be a Mars person.  Mars is still exciting, of course, but  in the past few years the Moon really has become a whole new Moon, most obviously with the discovery of water in amounts different than expected (a simple statement with many scientific papers enveloped in it).

One of the highlights from the meeting for me was hearing that there are craters in the polar regions of the Moon that are estimated to have high levels of water available… less than 50 km from areas with near constant availability of sunlight.  All the recent science about the Moon greatly informs human exploration… and what is better than having science and exploration walk hand in hand?

If you want to know more about the lunar science shared at the Forum, go to http://lunarscience2010.arc.nasa.gov/agenda; the talks will be posted there shortly.

In the meantime, keep dreaming about all the undiscovered secrets of the Moon:  lava tubes, pockets of water, and combining awesome LROC image data with mini-RF data (really really cool insights!)

And it is only fitting that the Lunar Science Forum is being followed up by a NewSpace Conference.  A New Moon indeed!

A non-NASA friend recently asked me and some other NASA folks what we thought of the “Colbert” ISS-module naming situation.  For those who don’t know about this (really?), NASA held an online vote for naming the yet-to-be-launched Node 3 of the International Space Station (ISS).  It gave four specified options (Legacy, Venture, Serenity, and Earthrise) and allowed for write-in votes.  Colbert beat out Serenity by thousands of votes.  Further rumors of naming the ISS toilet after him fueled the fire, with NASA responding in a nicely done cheeky way.

Today, it was announced that NASA will name the new ISS module on The Colbert Report on Tuesday, April 14th.  This is what prompted this post:  I’m interested in hearing some folks’ thoughts about this BEFORE it is announced.  Opinions abound on the internet, but many people, like my non-NASA friend, are curious what people at NASA think about all of this.

While some might think this is overblown and inconsequential to NASA’s real work, this whole situation has given NASA more attention in the public eye than it has had in a very long time.  It touches on themes of sanctity (how sacred do we view our space program?) and listening to the will of the people.  Do NASA folks have a sense of humor?  Do they watch Colbert?

What do folks think?

Participatory Exploration Policy Recommendations for National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Participatory exploration was first introduced in 2007 at the NASA Participatory Exploration Summit at Ames Research Center and was prioritized into the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 (H.R. 6063), highlighting its necessity to NASA’s continued public relevance in the 21st century. We have written a paper for NASA senior management that discusses the role of “participatory exploration” as a way of “aggregating and leveraging people’s contributions in ways that are useful to other people” which can be applied to NASA programs and projects to engage the American public in the exploration experience and to identify opportunities for the direct involvement of the public, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and international partners.  The paper includes specific recommendations which we have summarized below.  We’ve posted the paper on openNASA for your consideration and encourage you to share your thoughts on Participatory Exploration as well. Please share your thoughts via the comments below or on if you have specific ideas or recommendations, via the ideas forum.

Link to Executive Summary

Link to Full Paper

Eliminate the obstacles to working with the public

–      Encourage open-source adoption

–      Leverage the re-competition of NASA’s website

Some connections between NASA/ space and the environment:
• NASA launches and manages many Earth-observing satellites, which have provided data critical to understanding climate issues.
• Following on this previous point, NASA hosts the scientific talent to address many climate related issues of the day.
• NASA technologies used for spaceflight (solar panels, water recycling, many more) can have practical uses for terrestrial sustainability/ environmental/ climate problems.
• NASA’s system engineering approach has many parallels with the Earth Systems complexity of Spaceship Earth.
• The first whole, beautiful pictures of our Earth came from Apollo astronauts.

I think a lot of other folks have a lot to add to this conversation, so will make this initial post short.

Directly after the panel, and into the evening at conference social gatherings, numerous people came up to e and other Gen Y panel members to say that the panel really affected them and that what we had to say was very relevant. To be clear, some certainly had constructive criticism to offer (more below), but the reaction overall was extremely positive. People were actually thankful to be given the perspective of a younger generation, and were inspired by the ideas we discussed. Our 90 minute panel generated apparently 36 questions, which I later found out was the narrowed down number of questions given to the moderator; this was by far the most questions for any panel yet. People also loved the non-traditional use of powerpoint– and mentioned that they were inspired to try something different next time around! Go JSC team!! I revamped the NASA CoLab talk in the spirit of the Gen Y Perspectives powerpoint, and am glad I did so (change can happen ).

To be clear, not all questions were positively phrased. A common theme was, “You seem to think your generation is special and entitled and that we should work hard to reach out to you– why should we have to?” This actually came up most often when I asked for constructive feedback. I think older generations really DO feel like they have a lot in common with us, particularly in what they want– openness, collaboration, etc. (“nobody WANTS bureaucracy”, one person pointed out). I wonder if we might ask them to JOIN us in implementing this changes in NASA– that an opennasa is not just for us youngins, but that they can bring out their youthful spirits again. I also believe they want to be incorporated into this future vision, and that their potential contributions as mentors be recognized.

Kudos for George Whitesides for bringing out some of these difficult questions during the panel– it made for a much more interesting conversation!

I am deeply inspired by what transcended today. To have higher ups for NASA and industry thank me and the others for sharing, for being open to listen, and for honestly sharing their feedback. NASA is ready for NASA CoLab– I truly believe it now. I have a lot of hope for the space program and related industries, and am thankful to have more senior folks listen to Gen Y perspectives and be willing to engage.

[Note added Feb. 29, 2008: I was the 3rd of four panelists: Mary Lynn Dittmar, Kristen Painting, self (Delia Santiago), Alex Stimpson. Kristen's presentation (the big buzz generator, from 4 JSC folks) is at http://www.opennasa.com/download/1/  My presentation is at: http://nasacolab.org/files/SpaceEx08_DLSANTIAGO.ppt  More information at: http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=230&lumeetingid=1989 ]