Updated NASA OBPR Research Plan Online

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This research plan presents the mission, acknowledges the past accomplishments, and clarifies the priorities and intended direction for scientific investigations, strategic research, and commercial and technological developments to be sponsored by NASA’s Office of Biological and Physical Research. The audience for this Plan is intended to be the relevant research communities, agency and federal management, and Congressional interests. It was prepared in response to Congressional direction (e.g. HR.106-988, S.107-222) for a ten-year research plan that includes operational requirements for the research to be done on the International Space Station (ISS).

This is an update from the December 19, 2002 draft.

Foreword

This research plan presents the mission, acknowledges the past accomplishments, and
clarifies the priorities and intended direction for scientific investigations, strategic
research, commercial and technological developments to be sponsored by NASA’s Office
of Biological and Physical Research (OBPR). The audience for this plan is intended to
be the relevant research communities, agency and federal management, and
Congressional interests. It was prepared in response to Congressional direction (e.g.
H.R.106-988, S.107-222) for a ten-year research plan that includes operational
requirements for the research to be done on the International Space Station (ISS).

The OBPR Research Plan was also prepared to guide, unify and stabilize the endeavors
of this new NASA Enterprise, which receives many recommendations from advisory
committees, technical societies, international partners, and a vested public. The plan
relies and builds upon the work of our predecessors, our peers and external advisors, such
as the NASA Advisory Council, the Research Maximization and Prioritization (ReMaP)
Task Force, the Independent Management and Cost Evaluation (IMCE) committee, and
several National Research Council (NRC) panels. In issuing this plan, we hope to engage
the scientific and engineering research communities to realize the potential benefits of the
new laboratories in space, especially those on the ISS.

A draft of this research plan was issued in December, 2002 for review and comment by
the OBPR advisory committees and subcommittees, as well as placed on the OBPR Web
site for open review. Comments were also solicited from the research community
attending various technical conferences. To the extent possible, those comments were
incorporated into the final research plan herein.

This document will serve as the basis for more detailed plans and open, competitive
solicitations for research to answer the ‘Organizing Questions’. The more detailed plans
will be developed and vetted with the research community. The detailed plan
development and the associated vetting process may cause the phrasing of the ‘subquestions’
to be changed. A goal is for the detailed plans and the implementation plans
of the OBPR to be finalized by the end of the 2003 fiscal year.

Executive Summary

This Research Plan presents the mission, acknowledges the past accomplishments, and
clarifies the priorities and intended direction for scientific investigations, strategic
research, and commercial and technological developments to be sponsored by NASA’s
Office of Biological and Physical Research. The audience for this Plan is intended to be
the relevant research communities, agency and federal management, and Congressional
interests. It was prepared in response to Congressional direction (e.g. HR.106-988,
S.107-222) for a ten-year research plan that includes operational requirements for the
research to be done on the International Space Station (ISS).

For over 40 years, NASA has sent people on short forays in orbit to conduct brief
scientific and engineering experiments in apparent weightlessness, i.e. in microgravity.
We sought to understand the role of gravity in the physical universe and on life itself.
We learned that the effects of gravity that we experience on Earth significantly alter the
behavior of many aspects of biology, physics and chemistry. We also learned that
biological systems – from cells to plants to people — undergo changes from short-term
and long-term space habitation that are not completely understood. Thus, humankind’s
eventual travel beyond earth’s orbit into new environments poses profound challenges.
We must discover ways for space explorers to withstand hazards for which humanity’s
experience on Earth never prepared them. As we discover, we also will seek new
knowledge, technology, and commerce to realize benefits for people on earth, and
innovations that enable scientific exploration safely, productively, and affordably.

The OBPR and its predecessor organization have had a successful history of spaceflight
research in life and microgravity sciences. Flagship missions flew successfully on the
Shuttle and the Mir, in anticipation of the creation of the International Space Station.
These programs, which evolved into the OBPR research portfolio of today, nearly
doubled in the last 6 years—from fewer than 350 to greater than 1,000 research
investigations. The published journal articles and patented technologies reflect this
growth. In 2001, our 852 principal investigators produced 3,499 research publications.
Similarly, the commercial programs grew over the same time period — from nascent
entities to a set of commercial space centers that today are working with 150 US
companies and 80 product lines in multiple disciplines.

For the first time, the laboratory of the International Space Station (ISS) offers scientists
and engineers a permanent microgravity facility with much more power, crew time, and
physical volume than the Space Shuttle, the Mir, or any other laboratory. As stated by
the NASA Administrator, “The International Space Station (ISS) is without precedent in
the history of the U.S. space program… In the unique environment of space combined
with research, exploration, human innovation and creativity, the ISS holds the potential
to forever improve the quality of life on Earth.”

The Office of Biological and Physical Research endeavors to lead our research to realize
this potential – not only in the ISS, but in all of our experiments in space. The
environment on the ISS and other space-based laboratories makes the research supported
in this Office unique to the NASA mission, and separates it from the research by other
agencies.