Scientific Prerequisites for the Human Exploration of Space, Executive Summary, NRC 1993

Full Report

Executive Summary

The role of science in human exploration is paramount and its challenges no less daunting than those facing the engineering community. New scientific data concerning the health and safety of astronauts are essential prerequisites for the human exploration of space. Research must be done to understand and alleviate the deleterious effects of microgravity on human physiology, the risks posed by radiation in space, and the environmental stresses humans will experience travelling to and operating on and around other planetary bodies. The U.S. scientific and engineering community is obliged to provide the best and most constructive advice to help the nation accomplish its space goals, as was stressed in a 1988 space policy report to the newly elected president by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.⁴ To that end the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board established the Committee on Human Exploration (CHEX) and charged it, as its first responsibility, to determine what scientific questions need to be answered before humans can undertake extended missions to the Moon and travel to Mars.

Defining these scientific prerequisites entails a degree of judgment about both our current state of knowledge of the relevant science and the potential modes of mission implementation. CHEX determined that some issues are critical to the basic survival and elementary functioning of humans in space. Other issues concern the effectiveness and efficiency of operations and their impact on overall mission success. The line between the two is sometimes fuzzy, and the committee anticipates that with time crossover will occur.

Beyond the information needed to provide for the basic health and well-being of astronauts operating in extraterrestrial environments, the expansion of human presence and activity into the solar system does not demand any a priori scientific research component. Nor is a Moon/Mars program driven by any demands for scientific discovery. The latter view is expressed in the National Academies’ 1988 space policy report, which states that “the ultimate decision to undertake further voyages of human exploration and to begin the process of expanding human activities into the solar system must be based on nontechnical factors.”⁵ Given a nontechnical decision, what then is the proper role of science?

That there is a role is not open to much debate. The Paine report,⁶ the Ride report,⁷ the Augustine report,⁸ and the report of the Synthesis Group⁹ all recommend, to varying degrees, that significant scientific research be conducted in association with human exploration. In fact, “exploration” does not exist in isolation from scientific research. There are, however, two distinctly different categories of science that must be considered. There is the “enabling” science required if we are to conduct human exploration at all. Then, there is the “enabled” science made possible, or significantly enhanced, because it is carried out in conjunction with a program of human exploration. This report deals with the former topic. The latter is treated in a preliminary fashion insofar as it impacts the scientific effectiveness of Moon/Mars missions. For example, conducting certain preliminary robotic missions to the Moon and Mars can result in a more effective scientific return from eventual human exploration. This report also contains some preliminary discussion of technology requirements, aspects of international scientific cooperation, and the approach used to manage the scientific component of a program of human exploration.