Abstract

NASA Research and Analysis: Status, Issues, and Recommendations for the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey Committee

Highlights

  • EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This white paper is motivated by the very low and continuously declining selection rates (~20%) of the Planetary Science Division (PSD) research and analysis programs over the past three to five years

  • Changes that would ensure a robust, sustainable review and proposal system are addressed in the white paper by Byrne et al Key findings ● NASA PSD R&A funding lacks transparency, especially the way in which funding is allocated from the different budget lines available to NASA. ○ While the planetary community generally considers the Planetary Science Division (PSD) Research and Analysis (R&A) to be openly competed fundamental science and data analysis programs in the ROSES call, there is significant variation in what NASA has considered R&A; this difference of perception resulted in budget profiles for these programs varying by more than 50% in separate 2017 submissions to the midterm Decadal Survey review panel [Sykes et al 2017​]

  • This discrepancy was in part due to the second planetary Decadal Survey (“Vision and Voyages”) not clearly and defining what to include in the term “R&A.” ○ The Internal Scientist Funding Model (ISFM), i.e., research packages using R&A funds and allocated to civil servant centers without competition with the rest of the community, has significantly altered the amount of openly competed R&A funding

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Summary

Introduction

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This white paper is motivated by the very low and continuously declining selection rates (~20%) of the PSD research and analysis programs over the past three to five years. STATE OF NASA PSD “RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS” “Research and Analysis” currently lacks a proper definition consistent throughout the years: see Sykes et al (“NASA Planetary Research and Analysis: What is R&A?” White Paper).

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