Life Sciences in the Space Program 



by a NASA researcher or by an individual proposal in the outside research 

 community — are reviewed by these panels. 



In contrast to the procedures described above, the peer-review process for flight 

 experiments identifies external reviewers from advisory committee and peer-review 

 panels when the flight program solicits and receives proposals for experiments. As 

 with the standing peer-review panels, AIBS manages the review. Both types of 

 panels include intra- and extramural scientists. 



Unique opportunities sometimes exist to develop flight experiments with 

 abbreviated schedules and severe space and design constraints. In most cases, the 

 experiments packaged for flight have undergone external peer review as earlier 

 ground-based projects. Decisions to put a demonstration or test on a flight 

 through a process called Detailed Supplementary Objectives are made at JSC. In 

 those instances, the Center establishes a peer-review process that includes outside 

 university participants, as well as a wide range of NASA scientists and managers. 



Initiation of Proposals. The peer-review procedures described above are initiated 

 when the Division receives proposals for research or flight experiments. Proposals 

 can be initiated in four ways: 



1) Request for Proposals (RFP) — a formal advertisement that requests specific 

 services or products. 



2) Announcement of Opportunity (AO) — a process used by NASA to request 

 the submission of proposals addressing specific areas of research that NASA 

 considers necessary to meet scientific objectives. All flight experiments of the 

 Life Sciences Division must be solicited through the AO process. 



3) Dear Colleague Letters — a semi-official procedure that announces 

 opportunities for proposals in specific areas of focused research. The 

 decision to send letters can be made within the Division as a means of 

 providing information about NASA program goals and objectives. This could 

 be replaced by a more formal process called a NASA Research Announce- 

 ment. 



4) Unsolicited proposals — a determination by NASA that it will respond to 

 the priorities established by the academic community through its definition 

 of appropriate research. Most of the Division's ground-based research and 

 analysis programs, as well as most of the research and analysis programs 

 within OSSA, have relied on unsolicited proposals. 



External Relations 



Historically, life sciences requirements have not been incorporated early enough 

 into major NASA projects, with certain notable exceptions, such as the Viking Pro- 

 ject and operational medicine activities. The accommodation of life sciences 

 research requirements on the Space Station has been a difficult process. The lack 

 pecifk call for life sciences specifications in the Space Station RFP suggested 

 that the life sciences perspective had not been fully acknowledged. Programmatic 



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