A Review Of Nasa Human Research Program S Scientific Merit Assessment Processes

At the request of NASA, an IOM committee reviewed NASA Human Research Program's (HRP's) Scientific Merit Assessment Processes for directed research. Directed research is commissioned or noncompetitively awarded research that is not competitively solicited because of specific reasons, such as time limitations or highly focused or constrained research topics. The scientific merit assessment processes have been developed by NASA to evaluate individual directed research tasks in order to ensure the scientific integrity of the HRP's directed research portfolio. The committee examined the HRP's current scientific merit assessment processes and conducted a public workshop to identify best practices among other federal agencies that use various assessment processes for similar types of directed research. Review of NASA Human Research Program's Scientific Merit Processes: Letter Report finds that the scientific merit assessment process used by the HRP for directed research is scientifically rigorous and is similar to the processes and merit criteria used by many other federal agencies and organizations - including the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and the United States Department of Agriculture - for comparable types of research. This report also makes recommendations on ways to streamline and bolster the accountability and transparency of NASA's current processes.

At the request of NASA, an IOM committee reviewed NASA Human Research Program's (HRP's) Scientific Merit Assessment Processes for directed research. Directed research is commissioned or noncompetitively awarded research that is not competitively solicited because of specific reasons, such as time limitations or highly focused or constrained research topics. The scientific merit assessment processes have been developed by NASA to evaluate individual directed research tasks in order to ensure the scientific integrity of the HRP's directed research portfolio. The committee examined the HRP's current scientific merit assessment processes and conducted a public workshop to identify best practices among other federal agencies that use various assessment processes for similar types of directed research. Review of NASA Human Research Program's Scientific Merit Processes: Letter Report finds that the scientific merit assessment process used by the HRP for directed research is scientifically rigorous and is similar to the processes and merit criteria used by many other federal agencies and organizations - including the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and the United States Department of Agriculture - for comparable types of research. This report also makes recommendations on ways to streamline and bolster the accountability and transparency of NASA's current processes.

The 1998 Committee on Space Biology and Medicine (CSBM) report A Strategy for Research in Space Biology and Medicine in the New Century assessed the known and potential effects of spaceflight on biological systems in general and on human physiology, behavior, and performance in particular, and recommended directions for research sponsored over the next decade by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The present follow-up report reviews specifically the overall content of the biomedical research programs supported by NASA in order to assess the extent to which current programs are consistent with recommendations of the Strategy report for biomedical research activities. In general, NASA programs concerned with fundamental gravitational biology are not considered here. The committee also notes that this report does not include an evaluation of NASA's response to the Strategy report, which had only recently been released at the initiation of this study. Review of NASA's Biomedical Research Program summarizes the committee's findings from its review of (1) NASA's biomedical research and (2) programmatic issues described in the Strategy report that are relevant to NASA's ability to implement research recommendations.

The American workforce is changing, creating new challenges for employers to provide occupational health services to meet the needs of employees. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) workforce is highly skilled and competitive and employees frequently work under intense pressure to ensure mission success. The Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer at NASA requested that the Institute of Medicine review its occupational health programs, assess employee awareness of and attitude toward those programs, recommend options for future worksite preventive health programs, and ways to evaluate their effectiveness. The committee's findings show that although NASA has a history of being forward-looking in designing and improving health and wellness programs, there is a need to move from a traditional occupational health model to an integrated, employee-centered program that could serve as a national model for both public and private employers to emulate and improve the health and performance of their workforces.

The 2011 National Research Council decadal survey on biological and physical sciences in space, Recapturing a Future for Space Exploration: Life and Physical Sciences Research for a New Era, was written during a critical period in the evolution of science in support of space exploration. The research agenda in space life and physical sciences had been significantly descoped during the programmatic adjustments of the Vision for Space Exploration in 2005, and this occurred in the same era as the International Space Station (ISS) assembly was nearing completion in 2011. Out of that period of change, Recapturing a Future for Space Exploration presented a cogent argument for the critical need for space life and physical sciences, both for enabling and expanding the exploration capabilities of NASA as well as for contributing unique science in many fields that can be enabled by access to the spaceflight environment. Since the 2011 publication of the decadal survey, NASA has seen tremendous change, including the retirement of the Space Shuttle Program and the maturation of the ISS. NASA formation of the Division of Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications provided renewed focus on the research of the decadal survey. NASA has modestly regrown some of the budget of space life and physical sciences within the agency and engaged the U.S. science community outside NASA to join in this research. In addition, NASA has collaborated with the international space science community. This midterm assessment reviews NASA's progress since the 2011 decadal survey in order to evaluate the high-priority research identified in the decadal survey in light of future human Mars exploration. It makes recommendations on science priorities, specifically those priorities that best enable deep space exploration.

When the space exploration initiative was announced, Congress asked the NRC to review the science NASA proposed to carryout under the initiative. It also asked the NRC to assess whether this program would provide balanced scientific research across the established disciplines supported by NASA in addition to supporting the new initiative. In 2005, the NRC released three studies focusing on a portion of that task, but changes at NASA forced the postponement of the last phase. This report presents that last phase with an assessment of the health of the NASA scientific disciplines under the budget requests imposed by the exploration initiative. The report also provides an analysis of whether the science budget appropriately reflects cross-disciplinary scientific priorities.