A
Statement of Task
The NRC will appoint an ad hoc committee to evaluate the most recent drafts of 14 technology roadmaps that NASA has revised and updated. The scope of the technologies to be considered includes those that enable NASA’s human exploration and science missions.
With regard to assessing the revised roadmaps, the committee will in its report:
- Compare the list of technologies in the 2015 draft of NASA’s space technology roadmaps to the list of technologies in the revised technology area breakdown structure that appears in the 2012 National Research Council report, NASA Space Technology Roadmaps and Priorities: Restoring NASA’s Technological Edge and Paving the Way for a New Era in Space.
- Identify the technologies that appear in the 2015 roadmaps that do not appear in the 2012 report and assess these new technologies using the same prioritization criteria that were used to prioritize the technologies listed in the 2012 report.
- Determine which of the new technologies should be added to (1) the list of 83 high-priority technologies presented in the 2012 report and (2) the list of 16 highest-priority technologies that also appear in the 2012 report.
In addition the committee will recommend a methodology for conducting independent reviews of future updates to NASA’s space technology roadmaps, which are expected to occur every four years. The recommended methodology should take into account the extent of the changes expected to be implemented in the roadmaps from one generation to the next and the amount of time since the initial comprehensive independent review of the roadmaps, which took place during the study that led to the 2012 NRC report.
The scope of this study does not include assessing or recommending changes to the content of the new aeronautics technology roadmap, nor does it include reassessing the prioritization of the technologies that appear in the NRC’s 2012 roadmaps report.
