Space experts say: Explore solar system on a dime

William Atkins
Wednesday, 09 March 2011 00:11

Science - Space

The National Research Council made recommendations for the U.S. unmanned space program for its top three projects to accomplish over the next ten years. The main point of this committee's recommendations was to do it efficiently and within the stated budget.

The Planetary Science Decadal Survey 2013-2022 is a survey of over 1,600 planetary scientists, within five separate panels of scientists and experts, that was compiled within a report from the private, nonprofit National Research Council (NRC).

The NRC functions within the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to provide recommendations and advice to the United States in the areas of science, technology and health policy.

The title of the report, released on Monday, March 7, 2011, is "Visions and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022" (or, simply "Visions and Voyages").

After much consideration and discussion, the committee eventually agreed on three missions that would provide the biggest bang for the bucks to the United States.

However, those bucks would be stretched thin by the limited amount of monetary resources to NASA during this decade of exploration.

American astronomer Seven Squyers, Cornell University, led the team the developed the report and its recommendations.

Their recommendations emphasized the fact that these projects must be in line with the amount of money that NASA allows for them - they cannot exceed their budgets if NASA expects to accomplish its goals over the next ten years.

The fiscal 2011 budget for NASA is tentatively $18.7 billion, and its proposed budget for only solar-system/planetary science in fiscal 2012 is estimated at about $1.48-$1.54 billion.

However, after 2012, the amount of money reserved for robotic missions in the solar system begin to decrease so by 2016 the projected amount of money that NASA has to work with for these unmanned missions is only $1.25 billion.

Page two talks about the top recommendation by the NRC's Visions and Voyages report.