Right Programs 



Space Flight and Multidisciplinary Research 



Some of the greatest technological and programmatic challenges confronting 

 NASA's Life Sciences program are found in the most multidisciplinary research 

 areas, addressed by Exobiology Biospherics Research, and CELSS. These 

 challenges are both scientific and organizational: the three areas are inherently 

 multidisciplinary, with research objectives that span virtually the entire suite of 

 activities sponsored by the Life Sciences Division, ranging from nucleosynthesis of 

 biogenic elements, to molecular genetics, to atmospheric physics. 



Such broad programs can achieve significant progress only through the synthesis 

 of data, insights, and developments in the disciplines of biology, chemistry, 

 climatology, computer sciences, engineering, geology, physics, and more. The data, 

 insights, and progress are derived from a blend of ground-based laboratory, field, 

 observational, and theoretical research, as well as from information collected by 

 spaceborne laboratories, solar system exploration missions, and orbiting observa- 

 tories. 



The Exobiology Program has established tight interfaces with several other NASA 

 programs, and it supports work conducted in cooperation with the National 

 Science Foundation. As a result, Exobiology has developed techniques to facilitate 

 the transfer of scientific, programmatic, and organizational information across the 

 involved disciplines. Because it deals with fundamental questions that are often 

 controversial, maintenance of rigorous scientific excellence and credibility is of 

 paramount importance. Consequently, the guiding management philosophy of the 

 Exobiology Program has been to create and maintain, by policy and 

 administration, a climate that promotes communication across disciplinary and 

 organizational boundaries, that fosters creativity and the development and 

 implementation of new concepts, and that contains sufficient controls to assure 

 scientific excellence. As such, the program may provide a model for NASA in 

 implementing cross-disciplinary transfers for other aspects of its mandated 

 activities in general and for the Life Sciences Division in particular. 



Findings 



• In support of Exobiology, Biospherics Research, and CELSS, studies of the 

 chemistry of terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments would provide 

 technical data directly applicable to designing experiments and instrumentation 

 for solar system exploration, including investigations of planet Earth, and 

 establishing requirements for support of long-term human space flight. 



— Understanding the relationship between biological evolution and the 

 evolution of the Earth would assist studies of planetary and biological 

 evolution elsewhere in the universe. 



— Flight missions are required to collect such data. 



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