I'm helping NASA turn science fiction into science

hoyt-2014I'm both excited and humbled to announce that I'm joining the external council for NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program! NIAC nurtures visionary, sci-fi-esque ideas that could radically transform future NASA missions. Essentially, NIAC is one of the coolest of the many cool programs at NASA.Just recently, NIAC announced funding for 12 projects including a submarine for Saturn's moon, Titan, a comet hitchhiker, and an asteroid wrangler (pictured above, via Robert Hoyt). The previous round of funding saw projects researching everything from human stasis (suspended animation) for long duration space travel to 3D printing biomaterials on Mars. The whole catalog of awards from 2011 onwards is online.If that isn't exciting enough, the NIAC External Council (NEC) is an amazing group of individuals that I am honored to be joining. The council is chaired by Frank Martin who worked on the science operations of Apollo 16 and Apollo 17. The other members include Frank Drake, of the famous Drake Equation who pioneered the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and also created the Arecibo message; Penelope (Penny) Boston, who studies extremophiles and how they can inform us of potential life on Mars; David Brin, a notable science fiction author and science futurist; John G. Kramer, who is conducting experiments on quantum entanglement and authored two hard science fiction novels; Michael Yarymovych, a former VP at Boeing and Chief Scientist of the U.S. Air Force; and Larry Young, a professor of astronautics at MIT and has been involved in an extensive amount of biomedical research and engineering.NIAC was originally formed in 1998 (at that time the "I" stood for "Institute). The program was then canceled in 2007, but a National Academy of Sciences report in 2009 urged Congress and NASA to reinstate the program:

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) was formed in 1998 to provide an independent source of advanced aeronautical and space concepts that could dramatically impact how NASA develops and conducts its missions. Until August 2007, NIAC provided an independent open forum, a high-level point of entry to NASA for an external community of innovators, and an external capability for analysis and definition of advanced aeronautics and space concepts to complement the advanced concept activities conducted within NASA. Throughout its 9-year existence, NIAC inspired an atmosphere for innovation that stretched the imagination and encouraged creativity. Utilizing an open, Web-based environment to conduct solicitations, perform peer review, administer grant awards, and publicize its activities, this small program succeeded in fostering a community of external innovators to investigate advanced concepts that might have a significant impact on future NASA missions in a 10- to 40-year time frame.Recommendation 3.1: NASA should reestablish a NIAC-like entity, referred to in this report as NIAC2, to seek out visionary, far-reaching, advanced concepts with the potential of significant benefit to accomplishing NASA’s charter and to begin the process of maturing these advanced concepts for infusion into NASA’s missions.

NIAC, now with the "I" standing for "Innovative", has been back in the business of being awesome since 2010. You can follow some of the awesomeness surrounding NIAC and their funded projects on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NASAIAC.Now for how you can help me: so much of NIAC's success is thanks to the creative and brilliant people that propose ideas to investigate. In the comments, I welcome your suggestions on what organizations NIAC could consider reaching out to in order to further the diversity of breakthrough ideas submitted each year. I encourage you to think broadly: biohackerspaces, sci-fi conventions, Disney imagineers, or who knows... pretty much any places that foster (or have the attention of) bright people who have the capability to conduct intensive scientific research and/or prototyping of exciting, "out there" concepts that could move space exploration forward.

The future of humans in space

In 2012, I announced that I was appointed as a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee member of a congressionally-requested study on the future of human spaceflight. Just last week, we released our 286-page report to the public (thankfully, there is a great summary section at the front!). I highly recommend reading the report; you can download it for free at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18801 after logging in. There are a lot of highlights, as the report is large, complex and nuanced. I thought I'd share just a few high-level quotes from the report for now:

The committee was tasked with providing recommendations that "describe a high-level strategic approach to ensuring the sustainable pursuit of national goals enabled by human space exploration, answering enduring questions, and delivering value to the nation" and to consider the evolution of such a program out to 2030 (though our report went on to include considerations out to the 2050s).

"The committee appointed to carry out the task above should contain a breadth of backgrounds spanning not only expertise in human exploration but also areas such as space science, science more broadly, sociology, the science of public polling, political science and history, and economics. In this regard, the membership of the committee that carried out this study looks different than committees that have carried out many previous studies related to human spaceflight by the NRC or other organizations, and thus the Committee on Human Spaceflight provides a fresh independent perspective on the issues involved in this much-studied area." (page xiii)

"The committee asserts that the enduring questions motivating human spaceflight are these:

How far from Earth can humans go? and — What can humans discover and achieve when we get there?" (page S-1)

"The nation must now decide whether to embark on human space exploration beyond LEO [low Earth orbit] in a sustained and sustainable fashion." (page S-4)

"Given the expense of any human spaceflight program and the significant risk to the crews involved, in the committee's view the only pathways that fit these criteria are those that ultimately place humans on other worlds." (page S-6)

"However, to set course on such an endeavor, the nation will need its investment in the human spaceflight program to grow annually over the coming decades. To continue on the present course—pursuit of an exploration system to go beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) while simultaneously operating the ISS through the middle of the next decade as the major partner, all under a budget profile that fails even to keep pace with inflation—is to invite failure, disillusionment, and the loss of the longstanding international perception that human spaceflight is something the United States does best." (page 1-1)

Rationales for human spaceflight

The committee outlined a set of pragmatic and aspirational rationales for human spaceflight. The pragmatic rationales being economic benefits, national security, national stature and international relations, inspiration of students and citizens, and scientific discovery. The aspirational rationales were human survival, and shared destiny/aspiration to explore.

"As discussed in Chapter 2, the pragmatic rationales have never seemed adequate by themselves, perhaps because the benefits they argue for are not unique to human spaceflight. Those that are—the aspirational rationales related to the human destiny to explore and the survival of the human species—are also the rationales most tied to the enduring questions. Whereas the committee concluded from its review and assessment that no single rationale alone seems to justify the value of pursuing human spaceflight, the aspirational rationales, when supplemented by the practical benefits associated with the pragmatic rationales, do, in the committee’s judgment, argue for a continuation of our nation’s human spaceflight program, provided that the pathways and decision rules recommended in this report are adopted." (page S-2)

…on human survival:

"Through space exploration, we have discovered the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus, realized that Mars effectively “dried up” 3 billion years ago, and monitored the decline of the ozone layer on our own planet. It is often said that it is difficult to know your own country until you visit other nations, and in this same manner, space exploration has provided the ability to better know our own planet as we contrast it with others. By continuing to unearth scientific knowledge of other planets and of our own, we our more aware of Earth's fragile nature." (page 2-26)"It is not possible to say whether off-Earth settlements could eventually be developed that would outlive human presence on Earth and lengthen the survival of our species. This is a question that can only be settled by pushing the human frontier in space." (page 2-27)

…on shared human destiny:

"This rationale can be defined as the conviction that human space exploration is transpersonal in nature and that space is a frontier for humanity’s collective aspiration. In this context, human spaceflight aims to study humanity’s future—to dare how far humans can go and to investigate what they have a chance to become. From space stations and starships to planetary outposts and terraforming, human imagination acts as a forecaster of a potential future to be reached only via continued development of humankind’s capabilities for human spaceflight." (page 2-27)"Human spaceflight is seen as forging a sense of common destiny. “Shared human destiny” and aspiration is a world-view that humans are all in this—life, the universe, and everything—together, and thus should endeavor to explore new frontiers collectively, even if vicariously through the experiences of others. Notably, this rationale is distinguished from survival as a rationale; in this view, collective exploration as part of an intrinsic human experience is separate and independent from the question of survival." (page 2-28)

U.S. human spaceflight in the context of the world

"“Soft power,” or “getting what you want (in international relations) by use of attraction rather than coercion” is a benefit of NASA's human spaceflight programs." (page 2-15)"space exploration makes unique contributions to U.S. political and social culture. It plays a role in defining what it means to be “an American,” and reinforces the identity as explorers who take the risk of challenging new frontiers that has long been a part of the national culture and history." (page 2-16)"It is evident that U.S. near-term goals for human exploration are not aligned with those of our traditional international partners. While most major spacefaring nations and agencies are looking toward the Moon and, specifically, the lunar surface, U.S. plans are focused on redirection of an asteroid into a retrograde lunar orbit, where astronauts would conduct operations with it. It is also evident that given the rapid development of China's capabilities in space, it is in the best interests of the United States to be open to its inclusion in future international partnerships. In particular, current federal law preventing NASA from participating in bilateral activities with the Chinese serves only to hinder U.S. ability to bring China into its sphere of international partnerships and reduces substantially the potential international capability that might be pooled to reach Mars." (page 1-19)"The prohibition on NASA speaking to Chinese space authorities has left open opportunities for collaboration that are being filled by other spacefaring nations." (page 1-3)

The future timeline of human spaceflight

"Continued operation of the ISS [International Space Station] beyond 2020 will have a near-term effect on the pace NASA can sustain in exploration programs beyond LEO [low Earth orbit]." (page 1-3)"Budget-driven affordability scenarios are based on the assumption that the three representative pathways to Mars are constrained by the HSF budget increasing with inflation. The lower bound of the budget uncertainty, or flat budget, was not considered, as this condition cannot sustain any pathway to land humans on Mars." (page 4-56)"Examination of the schedule- and budget-driven affordability scenarios for each pathway indicates, independent of the ISS extension, that the pathways using historical mission rates are not affordable, and affordable pathways based on an HSF budget increasing [only] with inflation are not sustainable." (page 4-57)

…on a scenario of the budget increasing:

"Assuming the ISS [International Space Station] is extended to 2028 and the HSF [human spaceflight] budget is increased up to 5 percent per year (two times the rate of inflation), the earliest a crewed surface mission to Mars is likely to occur will be approximately 2040 to 2050. Again, these dates are likely to be optimistic because delays will inevitably occur as developmental challenges and potential failures delay the specific pathway schedule and modify its design. If the exploration budget grows at 5 percent per year, the benefit of terminating the ISS in 2020 is not that great from an affordability perspective, in that a human landing on Mars may be accelerated by just 2 to 4 years, depending on the pathway and the associated risk." (page 4-59)

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…on a scenario of the budget only keeping pace with inflation:

"The scenario shown in Figure 1.11 was generated to conduct a technical analysis and affordability assessment of a notional pathway to Mars, with a human spaceflight budget that increases at or about the rate of inflation, while also adhering to Pathway Principle VIa and VId by including targets that provide intermediate accomplishments and minimize the use of systems that do not contribute to achieving the horizon goal. Astronauts would explore new destinations at a steady pace: operation at L2 is achieved in 2024, a rendezvous with an asteroid in its native orbit in 2028, and the lunar sortie in 2033. Continuing, a lunar outpost would be constructed in 2036, and the martian moons would be reached in 2043. Humans would land on Mars at the midpoint of the 21st century. However, this scenario violates Pathway Principle VIf because the flight rate is too low to maintain proficiency (Chapter 4): on average, one crewed mission every 2.1 years, with gaps of up to 5 years with no crewed missions.[71] This scenario could be modified to allow higher mission rates (see Chapter 4). However, that would require funding to increase at a rate substantially higher than the rate of inflation for more than a decade, which, in the current fiscal environment, would violate Pathway Principle VIe." (page 1-34)

"Based on the lessons from these and other scenarios presented in Chapter 4, the committee has concluded:

As long as flat NASA human spaceflight budgets are continued, NASA will be unable to conduct any human space exploration programs beyond cislunar space. The only pathways that successfully land humans on the surface of Mars require spending to rise above inflation for an extended period." (page 1-35)

Adults Are The Future

This thought was originally written for the Pastry Box Project and has been reposted here.

As someone who has publicly stumbled into a career in space, I often get asked about my interest in space as a little girl – if I had dreams of being an astronaut growing up, if I begged to go to space camp. These questions often bother me, not for being asked, but in the way they’re asked. In a sense, they’re not even questions. The interviewer is throwing me what they believe to be a softball question, assuming with almost certainty that I’ll have a quaint heart-warming story about how I now have achieved what I always dreamed about as a kid. The reality is that I don’t have any stories like that. Space and science barely registered on my radar growing up – not due to bad schooling or uneducated parents (both were great) – but probably because I had already found a love in art and design. From the time I was an early teenager, I was obsessed with one day becoming an “Executive Creative Director”, and spent the next eight years of my life dedicated to that one goal; working my way up the corporate ladder at an interactive agency and attending art school. It was only through serendipity (i.e. unexpectedly landing a job at NASA) five and a half years ago that I awoke to my obsession with space exploration. Prior to that, I was not a space geek. I did not follow NASA news. I didn’t tweet or blog about anything in a way that would’ve made me easily identified as someone to target with science outreach efforts. And yet, had you asked me if I would love to work at NASA, my answer would have been a resounding “fuck yes, of course!”. I suspect there are many people reading this who also don’t identify as space geeks and yet would exclaim the same answer.

There are very few endeavors focused on involving adults in science. The vast majority focus on getting kids into science, as they absolutely should. But, these endeavors view converting children into a career in science as the ultimate horizon goal. There’s a complete void when it comes to adults. Once you’ve chosen a career outside of science, you are forever lost to the science world. The focus on you ends. You’re considered an unfortunate statistic. Somehow overnight you went from being “the future” to being a “loss” on the science scoreboard. We abandon those supposed “futures” the moment they choose a career outside of science and continue to overlook them for the decades to come.

If an adult asks what they can do to get involved in science, the answer is almost always a simple “go back to school”. I actually got a chance to ask this to the late Sally Ride in 2009 and sadly received the same answer. I find this to be an incredibly cheap answer. It implies that you as you exist right now, with your unique experience, skill-set and way of looking at the world, are useless to the world of science. It implies that if you chose a career outside of science, then you chose the lesser career. This implication is amplified with women – examples of women choosing science over, say, fashion design, are touted as a huge success. These “other” careers are often mildly demonized as being shallow or a submission to gender-conditioning in society. While the public message is celebrating people choosing science as a career, the unintentional underbelly of the message is that those who didn’t chose the lesser path.

Last week, I attended an event by NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, a small program that funds some very cool science-fiction-esque prototyping, keynoted by Mythbusters’ Jamie Hyneman. Jamie seemed surprisingly nervous to talk to a group of rocket scientists, but he urged the importance of non-linear thinking and experimenting. Most people I’ve encountered in the science community applaud Mythbusters and look up to them, but they still tend to (wrongly) relegate their work and message as being intended for children, rather than for people of all ages.

Of the programs that explicitly target adults, most focus solely on improving science literacy, which is a worthwhile and important pursuit. But engaging adults in simply being informed about science, so that they may become better-educated voters, is lackluster in my eyes. In 1998, a National Science Foundation report made a remark that begins to hit the mark a little closer:

“It is important to understand how individuals assess their own knowledge of these subjects. For many purposes ... it is the individual’s self-assessment of his or her knowledge that will either encourage or discourage a given behavior.”

This starts to tear down the wall of judging people based on how “well-informed” or “attentive” they are (terms that permeate these statistics reports) to science, and instead places more significance on an individual’s assessment of themselves. To go further, I’d argue that “knowledge” isn’t as telltale of a measurement as “experience”.

We engage kids in hands-on learning activities to increase their confidence and strengthen their knowledge via direct experience, rather than observation. Direct experience has a profound effect on how people assess themselves and their willingness to learn more. And yet, so many programs that “engage” adults in science rely on passive media consumption: reading, art gallery exhibits, documentaries. Many institutions seem to fully support the idea of children playing with science, while at the same time not grasping the importance of continuing “play” with adults. In a sense, kids are encouraged to be independent explorers/learners while adults are not. Somewhere along the line, the removable training wheels of our youth became bolted on for our adulthood.

All of this frustration folds in to my work on Science Hack Day. Science Hack Day is a 48-hour-all-night event where anyone excited about making weird, silly or serious things with science comes together in the same physical space to see what they can prototype within 24 consecutive hours. Designers, developers, scientists and anyone who is excited about making things with science are welcome to attend – no experience in science or hacking is necessary, just an insatiable curiosity. People organically form multidisciplinary teams over the course of a weekend: particle physicists team up with designers, marketers join forces with open source rocket scientists, writers collaborate with molecular biologists, and developers partner with school kids. Science Hack Day is inherently about mashing up ideas, mediums, industries and people to create sparks for future ideas, collaborations and inspirations to launch from.

It is not my goal to convert people to a career in science, nor is it my aim to increase scientific literacy. Both of these can be a result for some people, but that’s not my focus. My focus is to change people’s relationship with science, from one of observation to one of active contribution and participation. Having adults play with science, despite lack of understanding or knowledge, is the most empowering form of science engagement. Being able to walk away from a weekend and tell others that you experimented with biotech, explored neurological phenomena,sonified subatomic particles, or designed a website about satellites, creates a mental locket – a keepsake that affirms your ability and your right to talk about, play with, and question science. You may not still know about the inner workings of biology, neuroscience, particles or spacecrafts, but you’ve tinkered with it. You now know that if you’d ever like to tinker with science again, that there’s no barrier to entry. You didn’t need permission, you didn’t need a degree, you didn’t need l33t hacking skills, you didn’t even need a MOOC. Science shifts from being Fort Knox to being just another available material you can manipulate.

The science industry suffers in immeasurable ways from not recognizing the potential of actively working with people outside of the science community. By having a fresh set of eyes from those who solve different types of problems across a variety of industries, new concepts often emerge and go on to influence scientific processes, communication and discoveries in unexpected ways. Ivory towers can absolutely get by in continuing to stay tunnel-focused, but the forfeiture of countless clever approaches made by maintaining such a narrow path is reckless.It’s not very different from visiting a foreign country, if only for a short time, as opposed to only having observed it in books and on television. In this case, the remote island is science, and like many places, you don’t need to speak the language in order to get by and explore. By empowering adults to play, you’re building an army of the future. The loudest advocates are not ones who are simply literate – the loudest are the ones who can proclaim that they’ve been to this island of science, they’ve talked to the locals, they’ve questioned the rituals and they’re dreaming of when they can one day visit again.