BOULDER, Colo. — Space science research is having a major impact on our daily lives.
It is also an enterprise that can provide a solid framework for global
cooperation in an uneasy world. Universities are a sparkplug in fostering space
science research — crucibles of creativity to harness interdisciplinary thinking for problem
solving.
Experts took part in a special panel
"Forging the Future of Space Science: The Next 50 Years," held here April
14 at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
(LASP).
The discussion is part of an
international public seminar series, marking the 50th anniversary of the
International Geophysical Year that launched science into space. The colloquia series
is organized by the Space Studies Board, a research arm of the National Academy
of Sciences.
Enormous changes
Walter Scott, Founder and Chief
Technical Officer of Digital Globe based in Longmont, Colorado, spotlighted the
enormous changes in satellite
remote sensing. He detailed the expanding applications for the next generations
of high resolution imaging — a far cry from spysat technologies first utilized
in the 1960s.
Scott pointed to trends in
commercial satellite remote sensing: better resolution, increased accuracy,
more bandwidth, and greater coverage of the Earth - in far-shorter time from
click to customer.
The ubiquity of satellite remote
sensing in our daily lives, Scott said, is moving quickly, mimicking use of electricity
and the Internet.
James Watzin, Director of Space
Programs at ATK Space, took a hard look at NASA, indicating that the space
agency appears to have "lost its customer."
While NASA celebrates 50 years of
progress this year, Watzin said there's need for public dialogue to cast the
civilian space agenda in more necessary and relevant terms. NASA faces a
vulnerable state of paralysis, he suggested, striving to send humans to Mars
while dealing with tight budgets, issues of mission affordability and
risk-taking.
Watzin signaled that NASA needs to
do the most exciting and compelling things that the country's best and
brightest people can possibly conceive of. NASA needs to be allowed by all
stakeholders to take more risk and have much more payoff.
Watzin is a former project manager
for the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Heavy reliance on sparse data
Progress is being made on assessing
the impact of space weather on systems, as well as humans, said Rodney Viereck,
Chief of the Space Weather Services Branch at the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder.
Still, "there's heavy reliance
on very sparse data," Viereck noted, with the customer base for space
weather data growing.
Viereck said there are diverse
impacts of space weather on today's technology, from communications,
navigation, and spacecraft operations to aviation, as well electric power
grids.
There is a beginning ability to
computer model in three-dimensions the complex nature of space weather, Viereck
said. The coupling of various space weather models is in the offing, he added.
In the years to come, Viereck said,
public access to space will bolster the need for better space weather
forecasting. Given the number of spaceports being planned, he said, both
orbital space tourism and point-to-point suborbital passenger travel will mean
increased use of space weather services.
Global workforce
Developing a globally-engaged
science and engineering workforce is a priority of the National Science
Foundation's Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE), said
Cynthia Singleton, a policy fellow at OISE in Washington, D.C.
Singleton reflected upon the role of
science diplomacy, also reviewing the research and development dollars being
spent in China,
Europe, Japan, Canada, as well as Saudi Arabia. Those expenditures should give
pause to those that ponder a key question: Will the U.S. remain a global leader
in technology and innovation?
OISE funds international research and education activities in a
variety of science disciplines, Singleton said. Doing so helps to open up
access to research talent and research facilities beyond U.S. borders, she explained.
Safe zones
Daniel Baker, Director of LASP said
that universities are now — and will continue to be — regional centers of
intellectual leadership and technological innovation.
"Universities should, well into
the future, be the neutral sites, or 'safe zones,' where industry, national
laboratories, and academia can feel secure to meet, exchange ideas, try new
approaches, and create," Baker told SPACE.com.
Baker explained that leading
universities will build mountains of development and economic growth in the "Flat
World" — drawing from the popular 2005 book of Thomas Friedman, The
World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.
The world of tomorrow will be far
more interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary than today, is Baker's forecast.
Universities must fully embrace that fact, he said, in teaching, learning and
research.
Furthermore, successful universities
must increase "in every possible way" hands-on education and training
opportunities, Baker said.
Space research can be a major
vehicle of learning and power, Baker advised. "Through space research,
universities should be funded to form strategic partnerships with key Chinese,
Indian, European, and Latin American universities."
Baker emphasized that through shared
campuses and extensions, space science and engineering has "more potential
to build peace and friendship than any other theme."
Space science should begin now to
encourage, and to drive, the strong interactions of humanities and social
sciences with the premier technical components of space research, Baker said.
Taking that approach, he felt, can provide continued strength and leadership
potential for space exploration in the world of tomorrow.
There's need to "take
universities to the world ... and bring the world to universities," Baker
concluded.
For more information on the Space
Studies Board public seminar series, go to:
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ssb/International_Public_Seminar_Series.html
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