"How would you go about finding out, when Mars lost it's Warm, wet environment, with a substantial atmosphere?"
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About NAI
Astrobiology is the study of the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. This interdisciplinary field requires a comprehensive, integrated understanding of biological, planetary, and cosmic phenomena. Astrobiology encompasses the search for habitable environments in our Solar System and on planets around other stars; the search for evidence of prebiotic chemistry or life on Solar System bodies such as Mars, Jupiter’s moon Europa, and Saturn’s moon Titan; and research into the origin, early evolution, and diversity of life on Earth. Astrobiologists address three fundamental questions: How does life begin and evolve? Is there life elsewhere in the universe? What is the future of life on Earth and beyond?
As part of a concerted effort to address this challenge, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established the NASA Astrobiology Institute in 1998 as an innovative way to develop the field of astrobiology and provide a scientific framework for flight missions. NAI is a virtual, distributed organization of competitively-selected teams that integrate astrobiology research and training programs in concert with the national and international science communities.
As of January 2009, the NAI has 14 teams including ~700 researchers distributed across ~150 institutions. It also has 6 international partner organizations. The Director and a small staff at “NAI Central,” located at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, administer the Institute. Each team’s Principal Investigator, together with the NAI Director and Deputy Director, comprise the Executive Council. Its role is to consider matters of Institute-wide research, space mission activities, technological development, and external partnerships. A history of the NAI outlines the unique path through which it arose and developed.
The NAI is one of four elements in the NASA Astrobiology Program. The others are the Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program, established in 1965 to support research on pathways leading to and from the origin of life with a focus on determining the potential for life to exist elsewhere in the Universe; the Astrobiology Science and Technology Instrument Development (ASTID) Program, established in 1998 to support prototype instrument development for astrobiology flight investigations; and the Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) Program, established in 2001 to support science-driven field campaigns to extreme environments aimed at developing techniques for the astrobiological exploration of other worlds in our Solar System. The scope of the NASA Astrobiology Program is defined by the Astrobiology Roadmap, most recently updated in 2008.
NAI’s mission outlines an integrated, holistic approach to establishing a new field of scientific inquiry, and it charts the course for exploring some of life’s most compelling questions. NAI’s mission is to:
• carry out, support and catalyze collaborative, interdisciplinary research;
• train the next generation of astrobiology researchers;
• provide scientific and technical leadership on astrobiology investigations for current and future space missions;
• explore new approaches using modern information technology to conduct interdisciplinary and collaborative research amongst widely-distributed investigators;
• and support outreach by providing scientific content for K-12 education programs, teaching undergraduate classes, and communicating directly with the public.NAI’s teams are supported through cooperative agreements between NASA and the teams’ institutions; these agreements involve substantial contributions from both NASA and the team. The NAI Handbook outlines the expectations of membership in the Institute, emphasizing active participation in realizing all aspects of NAI’s mission. The executive summaries from each team’s latest annual report describe their recent contributions to astrobiology research. NAI’s online Research Archive highlights top scientific discoveries and advances.
Community and collaboration are essential to achieving NAI’s mission and effectively addressing the questions of astrobiology. Beyond providing funds, NAI incorporates numerous elements toward these goals. For example, the Director’s Seminar Series brings the community together monthly via videoconference to share scientific progress; the Focus Groups mobilize expertise across the community on relevant topics; and the Newsletter provides the latest news about activities and opportunities. NAI also organizes Institute-wide workshops to facilitate collective discussion and planning for astrobiology research, and offers the Director’s Discretionary Fund to support collaborative projects. A special focus on the next generation of astrobiologists, exemplified by the NAI’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and the Lewis and Clark Fund, has contributed to a vibrant, forward-thinking community.
During its first decade, NAI had many significant research accomplishments, as well as contributions to NASA missions. NAI was influential in defining the landing sites for the Mars Exploration Rovers, which ultimately provided evidence of past liquid water on the Martian surface. NAI scientists detected methane gas in the Martian atmosphere, implying that the planet is at least geologically alive, if not biologically as well. Here on Earth, NAI scientists have discovered an entire ecosystem of microorganisms 3km beneath the Earth’s surface, existing completely independently of the Sun. And NAI scientists have begun to characterize planets around other stars, detecting both water vapor and carbon dioxide in their atmospheres.
As NAI enters its second decade, its scientists continue to explore the limits of life on Earth, develop new ways to search for life elsewhere in the Universe, and advance our understanding of how life itself originated on our own planet.
The mission of astrobiology is to study the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life on Earth and in the Universe.
Astrobiology shares with other space related science programs a broad range of research interests. Astrobiology encompasses the understanding of biology as a planetary phenomenon. This includes how planetary processes give rise to life, how they sustain or inhibit life, and how life can emerge as an important planetary process; how astrophysical processes give rise to planets elsewhere, what the actual distribution of planets is, and whether there are habitable planets outside of our solar system; a determination of whether life exists elsewhere and how to search for and identify it; what the ultimate environmental limits of life are, whether Earth’s biota represent only a subset of the full diversity of life, and the future of Earth’s biota in space.The mission of the NASA Astrobiology Institute is to further our understanding of these profound questions by:
- carrying out, supporting and catalyzing collaborative, interdisciplinary research;
- training the next generation of astrobiology researchers;
- providing scientific and technical leadership on astrobiology investigations for current and future space missions;
- exploring new approaches using modern information technology to conduct interdisciplinary and collaborative research amongst widely-distributed investigators;
- supporting outreach by providing scientific content for K-12 education programs, teaching undergraduate classes, and communicating directly with the public
Dr. Carl Pilcher, Director 2006-
Dr. Carl B. Pilcher has had careers in both academia and NASA management. He came to Ames from NASA Headquarters where he was the Senior Scientist for Astrobiology with overall management responsibility for NASA’s astrobiology program. His career began with bachelors and doctorate degrees in chemistry from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively. While still a graduate student, he led scientific teams that discovered water ice in Saturn’s rings and on three of Jupiter’s Galilean satellites including Europa, now a high priority astrobiology exploration target because of its subsurface liquid water ocean. Upon receiving his Ph.D., he joined the Institute for Astronomy (and later the Department of Physics and Astronomy) faculty at the University of Hawaii, where he discovered and analyzed “weather” on Neptune and participated in the discovery of methane ice on Pluto. He also conducted research on Jupiter’s plasma torus and served as a member of the imaging team of NASA’s Galileo mission to Jupiter.
Dr. Pilcher made the transition from academia to government through a master’s degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. His NASA management career began as Science Director in the Office of Exploration, established at NASA Headquarters by astronaut Sally Ride following the loss of the space shuttle Challenger. When President George H.W. Bush announced plans to return humans to the Moon and then go on to Mars, he moved to NASA’s Office of Space Science and Applications to lead scientific development for the new program. He subsequently assumed management responsibility for developing new solar system exploration robotic missions. In this capacity, he organized the science team for the Clementine lunar mission, NASA’s contribution to this Department of Defense/Ballistic Missile Defense Organization project. He also led the development of the competitive Discovery Program of small solar system exploration missions and played a pivotal role in one of the first Discovery missions, Mars Pathfinder, by developing the science-technology partnership that led to the inclusion of the Sojourner rover.
Dr. Pilcher subsequently held a series of NASA Headquarters management positions with responsibility, sequentially, for continued planning for human and robotic solar system exploration; strategic planning and developing international partnerships for the space science program; and scientific direction of the solar system exploration program. He has received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, numerous Group Achievement Awards, and an Ames Honor Award.
His transition to astrobiology was inspired by announcements, in 1995-96, of the first discoveries of planets around other stars and possible evidence of biological activity in the Martian meteorite ALH 84001. With training in microbiology from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, he assumed responsibility for astronomy-related astrobiology programs, including serving as Program Scientist for NASA’s Kepler mission to discover Earth-size planets around other stars and NASA’s participation in the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea. He moved from these responsibilities to overall management responsibility for the astrobiology program in early 2005, and to his current position as NAI Director in September 2006.
Dr. Edward Goolish, Deputy Director 2006-
Dr. Edward Goolish has been Deputy Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute since October of 2006. Prior to that Ed served the NAI in various capacities for six years, most recently as its Assistant Director for Research. Ed came to NASA Ames Research Center in 1994 to conduct research on the adaptation of aquatic vertebrate models to the microgravity environment of space. At the same time, he contributed to the design and development of biological research facilities for the International Space Station, and was involved in several life-science space missions including Neurolab and two flights of CEBAS, the Closed Equilibrated Biological Aquatic System.Prior to coming to Ames, Ed held postdoctoral positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He was the recipient of research fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the National Research Council for his work on the adaptation of organisms to the extreme environment of the deep-sea, and on the mechanisms involved in the scaling of metabolism in animals. The author of more than 30 peer-reviewed publications in the area of physiological ecology and astrobiology, Ed was himself first introduced to NASA while at the University of Michigan through a NASA Research Fellowship investigating the response of aquatic models to a simulated microgravity.
January 16, 2009
