The following presentations were made to the first meeting of the Mars panelof the National Research Council’s Planetary Science Decadal Survey. The meeting was held on September 9-11, 2009 in Washington, D.C. Titles of the presentations are from the agenda for the meeting. Adobe 8.0 or higher is needed to open most of these files. Some are quite large and may take a few moments to load; please be patient.

• Charge to the Decadal Survey, Doug McCuistion, et al, NASA
• Decadal Survey Overview, Larry Soderblom, USGS
• Mars Science Laboratory Status Report, Fuk K. Li, JPL
• Mars Science Goals, Jeffrey R. Johnson, USGS
• Lessons Learned from the 2003 Decadal Survey, Jack Mustard, Brown University
• Overview of Mars Science Status, Jack Mustard, Brown University
• MEPAG’s Trace Gas Orbiter SAG, Michael D. Smith, NASA Goddard
• MEPAG’s Mid-Range Rover SAG Scott, Scott McLennan, SUNY Stony Brook
• Past Accomplishments/Future Architecture Studies, Richard Zurek, JPL
• The Importance of Samples, Meenakshi Wadhwa, Arizona State University
• ExoMars Status Report, Jorge Vago, European Space Agency

The following presentations were made to the first meeting of the Satellites panel of the National Research Council’s Planetary Science Decadal Survey. The meeting was held on August 24-26, 2009 in Washington, D.C. Titles of the presentations are from the agenda for the meeting. Some of these were joint sessions with other Decadal Survey panels. Adobe 8.0 or higher is needed to open most of these files. Some are quite large and may take a few moments to load; please be patient.

• Lessons Learned from the 2003 Decadal Survey, Alfred McEwen, University of Arizona
• Decadal Survey Overview, Steve Squyres, Cornell
• Charge to the Decadal Survey, James Green et al, NASA
• NSF’s Support for the Planetary Sciences, Nigel Sharp, NSF
• OPAG’s Goals and Priorities, William McKinnon, Washington University
• How the Jupiter-Europa Orbiter Addresses Satellite Science, Robert Pappalardo, JPL
• Io Volcanic Observer Mission, Alfred McEwen, University of Arizona
• How a Uranus Mission Concept Addresses Satellite Science, Mark Hofstadter, JPL
• Cassini Equinox/Solstice Missions and Satellite Science, Linda Spilker, JPL
• Titan-Saturn System Mission, Jonathan Lunine, University of Arizona
• Titan Mare Explorer Mission, Ellen Stofan, Proxemy Research
• TMC Review of Outer Planet Flagship Missions, Curt Niebur and Brad Perry, JPL and NASA/Langley
• How a Neptune Mission Concept Addresses Satellite Science, Candice Hansen, JPL

The presentations that were made to the first meetings of each of the five panels of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Planetary Science Decadal Survey are now available on SpacePolicyOnline.com. Visit our NRC page on the left menu to find those presentations and other links to NRC studies.

Three of the five panels met in August: Giant Planets, Satellites, and Inner Planets. The other two met in early September: Primitive Bodies and Mars. The presentations provide an overview of ongoing planetary science missions and briefings on the missions that scientists are proposing to begin in the next decade. The task of the Decadal Survey is to recommend to NASA which missions have the highest priority.

Each of the panels is scheduled to hold three meetings during the course of the study. The Satellites panel already held its second meeting and the presentations from that meeting will be posted soon. Check our calendar on the right for when other panels, and the Survey Committee itself, plan to meet, or visit the Decadal Survey’s website.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report today concluding that the cost and schedule for NASA’s Constellation program will remain uncertain “until a sound business case is established.” It reported that NASA’s cost estimate for Ares 1 and Orion is “up to $49 billion of the over $97 billion” to be spent on Constellation through 2020, though the agency will not know the program’s ultimate cost until technical and design challenges have been addressed.

The report was requested by the House Science and Technology Committee, which issued a press release in which Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) said it was clear NASA had not been given adequate resources to implement the Constellation program and therefore the GAO findings should come as no surprise, adding: “GAO’s report provides a sobering indication of the negative impact that funding shortfalls can have on complex and technically difficult space flight programs like Constellation, no matter how dedicated and skillful the program’s workforce is.”

Among GAO’s findings are the following:

“NASA is still struggling to develop a solid business case-including firm requirements, mature technologies, a knowledge-based acquisition strategy, a realistic cost estimate, and sufficient funding and time-needed to justify moving the Constellation program forward into the implementation phase.”

“NASA estimates that Ares I and Orion represent up to $49 billion of the over $97 billion estimated to be spent on the Constellation program through 2020. While the agency has already obligated more than $10 billion in contracts, at this point NASA does not know how much Ares I and Orion will ultimately cost, and will not know until technical and design challenges have been addressed.”

The following presentations were made to the first meeting of the Primitive Bodies panel of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Planetary Science Decadal Survey. The meeting was held on September 9-11, 2009 in Washington, D.C. Titles of the presentations are from the agenda for the meeting. Adobe 8.0 or higher is needed to open most of these files. Some are quite large and may take a few moments to load; please be patient. If a presentation is missing from this list, it was unavailable or too large to post.

• Lessons Learned from the 2003 Decadal Survey, Dale Cruikshank, NASA Ames
• Charge to the Decadal Survey, James Green and Lindley Johnson, NASA HQ
• NSF’s Support for the Planetary Sciences, Vernon Pankonin, NSF
• SBAG’s Goals and Priorities, Mark Sykes, Planetary Science Institute
• Asteroid Science Goals 1, Faith Vilas, Director, MMT Observatory
• Asteroid Science Goals 2, Erik Asphaug, Univ. of Calif. Santa Cruz
• Comet Science Goals 1, Jessica Sunshine, University of Maryland
• Comet Science Goals 2, Donald Brownlee, University of Washington
• Meteorite Science Goals 1, Timothy McCoy, Smithsonian
• Meteorite Science Goals 2, Mark Sephton, Imperial College
• Kuiper Belt Science Goals 1, Michael Brown, CalTech
• Kuiper Belt Science Goals 2, Marc Buie, Southwest Research Institute
• Rosetta Status Report, Rita Schulz, European Space Agency
• EPOXI Status Report, Michael A’Hearn, University of Maryland
• Hayabusa Status Report, Donald Yeomans, JPL
• Dawn Status Report, Harry Y. McSween, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
• Stardust-NEXT Status Report, Joseph Veverka, Cornell

A NASA briefing is scheduled today at 2:00 EDT to discuss recent scientific findings from lunar probes, but the news already has made headlines in many media sources: not only is there water on the Moon, but it is pervasive.

Planetary scientists apparently are as surprised as anyone. Some had theorized that water could have collected from comet impacts over the eons and remained bound up in soil and rocks in permanently shadowed areas of the lunar poles.

Now, data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (MMM) sensor on India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiting spacecraft reportedly show that water is widespread on the lunar surface. To confirm their findings, MMM scientists looked at data from the Cassini spacecraft that flew past the Moon a decade ago on its way to Saturn, and the Deep Impact spacecraft that went on to study comets. That data confirmed what the MMM sensor detected. The New York Times quotes Lawrence Taylor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as saying that analysis of the lunar rocks returned to Earth by the Apollo astronauts four decades ago “did show signs of water” but that Dr. Taylor and others “dismissed the readings as contamination from humid Houston air.” Dr. Taylor is quoted as saying that he was one of the scientists back in the Apollo era who was “firmly against lunar water” but now says “I’ve eaten my shorts.”

According to the New York Times, the new results suggest that water is “being created when protons from the solar wind slam into the lunar surface. The collisions may free oxygen atoms in the minerals and allow them to recombine with protons and electrons to form water.”

The presence of water on the Moon could make it easier for astronauts to live and work there, though it would have to be extricated from the soil. What, if any, impact these findings will have on the current debate about the future of human space flight and whether astronauts should return to the Moon remains to be seen.