Feedback requested by May 9 about restructured PSD R&A Programs

Mars community,

Your feedback is requested! Jeff Johnson, MEPAG Chair, has been asked by the Space Studies Board (SSB) for the Mars community’s perspective on the efficacy of NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD) Research and Analysis (R&A) programs, following the 2014 restructuring. The Mars community feedback will comprise a portion of Jeff’s presentation to an SSB R&A Review Committee. This committee is responding to NASA’s request for an examination of the recent reorganization of NASA’s PSD R&A programs. The committee will hold its first meeting at the National Academy of Sciences on May 12-13, and has invited representatives from all of the PSD analysis groups (including the MEPAG Chair).

In particular (email from David Smith of the National Academies), the committee has been tasked to address the following questions:

  1. Are the PSD R&A program elements appropriately linked to, and do they encompass the range and scope of activities needed to support the NASA Strategic Objective for Planetary Science and the Planetary Science Division Science Goals, as articulated in the 2014 NASA Science Plan?
  2. Are the PSD R&A program elements appropriately structured to develop the broad base of knowledge and broad range of activities needed both to enable new spaceflight missions and to interpret and maximize the scientific return from existing missions?

To provide Jeff with sufficient information for the May meeting, we have created a web survey to facilitate the collection of feedback from the MEPAG community (see below). When sending in your feedback, please consider that in conducting its task, the SSB review committee:

  • Will conduct its review in the context of current budgetary realities that have differed from projections assumed prior to the release of the most recent planetary science decadal survey;
  • Will not examine the PSD R&A programs as they were prior to the restructuring; and
  • Will not comment on the strategic science goals and objectives of PSD, SMD, or NASA.

Please answer the survey questions by May 9. Note that we include the option of providing your name within the survey, in case we need to contact a respondent. All responses will be confidential, and any included in Jeff’s presentation will be without attribution. To answer the survey questions, go to: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jlek-3IeOfBXe6juOx-hqT3iLhiGEsm1bjS7Y3A2PgM/viewform.