Rachel Harris
NASA's Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy (DARES)
Thank you.
Hi everyone.
Yeah. My name is Rachel Harris.
I'm an npmp at headquarters in the astrobiology program.
I'm here to talk today about NASA's Decadal Astrobiology research and exploration strategy.
NASA DARES for short.
I'm really excited to be part of this community today.
Really. You know, thanks to Eric Manojack for extending the invitation for me to come and speak.
Really excited to see how the exoplanet science community can contribute to our new strategy.
So I know this is a very short talk. I'm going to give you a background anyway.
Just giving you a very quick background about the history of astrobiology at NASA as best as I can. In 10 to 15 minutes, and the importance of the strategy and shaping.
Astrology programmatics some new things that we have coming online at headquarters that are really trying to solidify Astrobiology's role as a cross divisional and even cross directorate effort at NASA in ways that that's going to help support programmatics going forward.
And three, of course, the reason I'm here. NASA DARES.
So for those of you who are familiar with this mural from NASA Ames, we kind of tend to think of astrobiology as the origins distribution.
And future of life in the universe. And I I'm I I think that that's something that's really, you know, poetic and beautiful. And it encompasses so many things.
About you know how the the basic building blocks of life are found throughout the universe and how everyone from very diverse communities can contribute to that.
But what?
I'm actually even more excited about is a recent definition that surreptitiously was provided by the art director of NASA Science.
Jenny Motar in this brand new, recently released artwork for astrobiology from Stars to life, and I think that this is a moniker that even better encapsulates the influence of astrobiology. From understanding from the very origins of stars and protoplanetary discs, to understanding the distribution and future of life.
And so astrology and exoplanet science share a lot of shared history.
The Astrobiology Institute was formally founded in 1995 at Ames Research Center. Pegasi, 51 B, the first confirmed exoplanet was, you know, announced also in 1995, and for anyone who can correct me on that, I'm not an expert in exoplanets science, so pardon me.
If that's not the the case, actually, but.
What does means is that astronautology and exoplanet science have both matured.
And grown up together and influenced each other over the last nearly 30 years now.
And so NASA's first astrobiology road map was released in 1998.
And it began with these three core questions that have since that time framed the entirety of NASA's astrobiology research portfolio.
And that is how does life begin?
And evolve. Does life exist elsewhere?
And what is the future of life on Earth and beyond?
And over the years, this cadence has been roughly on a three to five extended out to a 10 year time scale of goals and objectives and principles that the astrobiology community is wanting to set for itself to reach within the span of a again three to five year.
Time period. And so we get these periodic updates over time that are responding to the the science, how it has grown and evolved and also setting objectives.
For the year.
Head. And So what I want to show up here is that in the dark blue circles on the timeline, these are NASA's astrobiology strategies are previously known as Rd. maps, and so the last one was released in 2015.
So we're here now.
A decade later.
Quite a bit has happened.
We have, you know, discovered evidence of, you know, extrasolar systems that have potentially multiple habitable planets amongst others. We have habitable worlds coming online.
We have JWST and and that's just within exoplanet science, and so there's a lot that we need to catch up on and make sure that you know the next decade and beyond of astrology at NASA is reflective of how far the community has grown and advanced in the.
Last decade and interspersed in between the in you know, the last decade or so, the national academies has also been participating in.
Providing consensus reports for.
Astrology related fields as well of course.
You have the exoplanet science strategy, which I'm sure many of you in this room contributed to in 2019, there was a national academies strategy for the search for life in the universe, and most recently the planetary Science Decadal Survey, owl origin worlds in life used astrobiology, Exp.
In the title, but its scope was relevant to astrobiology in the realm of planetary science and planetary science missions.
And so we believe that it is high time to prepare a new astrology strategy. A NASA astrology strategy that is reflective of the entire field, not just in planetary science.
And so astrobiology at NASA, of course.
Our program home is currently in planet. The Planetary Science Division, and that's where we kind of think of the, you know, the traditional exopiology programs.
Habitable worlds for you know, it's it's being sunsetted, et cetera.
The research coordination networks most of them live there, but of course astrophysics is also a very important home for astrobiology as well. Searching for habitable worlds across the universe and how the world's observatory JWST, the Roman Space Telescope, etcetera, but also astrobiology really is relevant to across.
The Science Mission Directorate at NASA, even going back to the earliest road map in 1998.
We have science objectives that relate to understanding how.
Changing climate of a planet can impact life and vice versa.
So understanding the relationship between habitability and in that as well as understanding ocean worlds as well, there's obviously very strong links between understanding our own deep sea processes and and, for example, hydrothermalism and understanding.
Potential prebiotic chemistry, or chemotrophic, supported life.
Moving on, in heliophysics we have.
Living with the Starr program, which is, you know, understanding the sun Earth system as it affects life today.
So, and there's also a Rose's call out that is looking at the relationship between planetary atmospheres and habitability over time.
So there's certainly relevancy there as well, including space weathering, space weather and then of course biological and physical sciences.
This is really understanding.
You know how we can support life elsewhere?
This planet, so understanding how not only we can, you know, support human exploration in space, but also how life itself is impacted by extreme conditions of of, of space and including other planets. And so even beyond that.
So outside SMD, we're also tacking in, you know ESES.
Sorry SEO, which is the exploration science Strategy Integration Office.
So they're working with planetary science.
And esdmd to help understand scientific goals for human exploration. And part of that is understanding the role that astrobiology can play in helping support, you know, human exploration in space.
And then of course OIR, which is the Office of International and Interagency Relations.
So collaborating with our international partners and and also across agencies, for example, like the NSF, which supports a lot of astronomical sciences.
So that is kind of the 30,000 foot view and what we have now coming online at headquarters is the Astrobiology Federation. So this is.
Newly minted, we've just had our first couple of meetings.
And this represents program scientists from across the Science Mission Directorate and SEO. And so, as you can see here, we have good representation from the astrophysics division, including Hannah Jane Condell, who is program scientist for JWST. We also have Megan Ansdell, who is a program scientist for HA.
Worlds and you know this is really meant to be a group of people who are very familiar with their research communities. The subject matter.
Experts the and and have a really good sense of the the pulse of the where the state of the science is in their respective fields and the idea is that they can serve collectively as an an advisory group to make sure that astrobiology is being well represented across.
Smd and beyond moving forward.
So we want to make sure that this is a place where we have.
You know the right people at the table from very interdisciplinary communities and making sure that there's.
With representation from those communities.
And so this is where we talk about NASA DARES.
So this is what headquarters is doing right now and this is what we are now asking you, the Community, to help us with.
We are seeking your input in the development of the next NASA astrobiology strategy, and unfortunately I don't have time to go into all of the nitty gritty details. But for just a quick overview. So up here on the left is a QR code as well as a link that.
Leads to the inspires page.
For.
NASA DARES it's a request for information.
It's 5 pages maximum including references and we have listed here 9 different topics, so we're requesting you know that your submissions identify one primary topic and up to three secondary topics per response.
There's no limit to the number of responses, and as was mentioned earlier, you know presently the response deadline is officially February 4th, but we're working internally to try to see if we can get that due date.
Extended to accommodate our colleagues that have been impacted severely by the Southern California wildfires. So please be on the lookout for that announcement. But in terms of you know these nine topics here, review of recent advancements. So this is how far we've come in the last decade and.
Beyond identifying emerging themes and technologies.
So this is, you know, new areas of research and exploration that we're not.
Anticipated or or.
Spoken to perhaps in the last decade, that are becoming really, really important.
So one example I can think of off the top of my head is the importance of AI moving forward 3 fostering cross divisional and Cross Directorate collaboration.
So, you know, we've got we're making the workings of that happen right now at headquarters with the federation. And we're also talking about moving forward, how can we support?
You know programmatically for example like the roses program elements.
How to support astrobiology moving forward, incorporating and synthesizing recent recommendations?
So this is, you know, taking to account very important foundational documents such as national academies reports and all. All of the hard work that has been done by our predecessors and their previous Rd. maps and strategies, there's a lot of really good stuff in those documents, even though.
They are a little bit older now, so it's really good to look back at them.
Strengthening community. How can we kind of get out of our silos?
And continue to support multidisciplinary research that requires interdisciplinary collaboration.
Evaluating astrobiology's roles and missions.
Obviously this is very important in exoplanet science, especially relating to, for example, Habitable Worlds Observatory, which is coming online astrobiology and human space exploration and preparing for the discovery of life beyond Earth.
Not only that, but also how our science is going to change, you know, given the eventuality of making that discovery.
So there's a lot of work ahead, and of course, we don't pride ourselves in being all comprehensive.
So if you see something that is perhaps not quite fitting in these atopics, there's a 9th one there.
Any additional topic?
In a few minutes I have left. If you want to kind of do a deeper dive on this RFI and what each of these different topics means, I highly encourage you to go and check us out on YouTube.
We had a NASA astrology town hall.
On November 8th and myself and my colleague David Grinspoon, who's the senior scientist for astrology strategy, we presented this in in detail in including kind of talking about next steps after the RFI deadline.
So QR code is here YouTube link as well.
You could also just go to YouTube and type in the search bar NASA Astrobiology Town hall. This will be the first hit and then of course I also just, you know, really want to kind of tip my hat to exopag for taking the initiative.
To, you know, set up this community White paper spreadsheet so it gives a way for people to find and collaborate, you know, with colleagues online.
Because sometimes it's hard for us all to get in person and and and talk about our science and come up with white paper idea. So, you know, really hats off to exopag for kind of taking the lead on this.
So I encourage you to take a look there and I'm running low on time, so I will just leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Rachel. Any questions?
OK, let me start by asking, can you tell us a bit more?
How are these input than organized and what are the next steps?
Yeah, happy to do that.
So so the RFI deadline, as I mentioned, it's presently February 4th, but we're looking to extend that probably roughly 30 to 45 days.
So think more like mid March.
So after that time.
We are going to be.
Essentially collating the responses, and I should say even before then within the next few weeks, we're going to be working out sending out a dear colleague letter to announce self nominations for what we're calling Task Force One.
And so this is essentially more or less a review panel where of subject matter experts who are coming together and are going through the RFI responses.
Collating them by themes and topics identifying, you know, major important points.
And synthesizing those findings for presentation at a public workshop later in the spring. And so the idea is that this is kind of the first pass of Hello Community. This is what you said was important. And these are the major highlights.
What are your thoughts and what input was missing? And then from there a second task force which again we will be sending out?
A dear colleague letter again later this spring for.
Will be the main writing group and so they will be interfacing with.
You know us at headquarters in the federation to be essentially writing out the the detailed chapters and the objectives for the new astrology strategy throughout 2025. And the idea is that you would be presenting regularly at workshops with the community to or one transparency into making.
Sure that the IT really is a comprehensive strategy.
So the timeline there is, you know, a publication roughly, you know we we would love it for B first draft AGU 2025 this year, but most definitely by abstract.
Kan 2026, which is in the spring, so that would be our major roll out.
So any and all announcements related to that will be of course on the SMD mailing list.
Inspires, and the astrobiology mailing list.
So please.
Please join that and we're happy as well to field your questions via e-mail.
Thank you very much.
Let's thank Rachel again.
Unfortunately, we have to move forward.