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Introduction

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has remained committed to ensuring “preeminence of the U.S. in space exploration” as first articulated in the NASA Space Act of 1958.¹ Record numbers of robotic and human spaceflight missions have been launched over the last six decades and the data generated from these endeavors expand knowledge of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe beyond. In today’s context of rapidly expanding technology and grand societal and economic challenges, upholding the goal of preeminence is arguably linked to building and maintaining a workforce that is highly skilled, innovative, and productive.

NASA’s Science Plan 2020-2024 states,

While NASA is applauded for recognizing the value of diversity and inclusion, and seeking ways to advance these areas in their workforce, even a cursory examination of the teams involved in missions that explore the science of space lays bare the lack of diversity among mission leadership. The realization that mission principal investigators (PIs) and teams are largely white and male provoked this study to identify what NASA could do to increase the diversity of mission teams and their leadership. This section of the report summarizes the nature of the issues with which the committee was tasked and the approach taken to address them. The committee strived to create recommendations of actions for NASA to take immediately and in the long term in order to make significant strides toward its stated goals.

PI-LED SPACE MISSIONS

The specifics of the early process of selecting missions and the instruments they carried are not very clear in the historical records. It is known that by 1960, the teams of engineers and scientists carrying out missions were selected by NASA. The process for selection seemed to have evolved from first asking specific groups to propose

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¹ National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, https://history.nasa.gov/spaceact-legishistory.pdf.

instruments on NASA missions (e.g., Pioneer, Venus, Viking), to making a public announcement of opportunity (AO)² to propose an instrument to be put on a spacecraft that would be built at a NASA center (e.g., Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, Hubble Space Telescope). In 1988, the first AO (SMEX [Small Explorer]) was released by NASA for a fully open, competed mission led from the outset by a PI, although NASA maintained responsibility for the management and engineering of all segments of the mission except for the instruments and science operations. Additionally, this AO did not include current cost-cap parameters that were implemented beginning in 1994. Since that time, several missions although not fully open, competed missions, were catalysts for the PI-led mission process as we know it today, such as the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE), and New Horizons that were subsequently “grandfathered” into the Discovery, MIDEX (Medium-Class Explorer), and New Frontiers programs, respectively. Dates of some major milestones in the evolution of NASA’s PI-led space missions are listed in Box 1.1.

A PI-led mission is a complete cost-capped, focused, space or Earth science mission in which the concept, including design, development, launch, operations, and scientific analysis, is proposed by a single PI (NRC 2006). Over the years, enthusiasm for PI-led, competed instruments and missions has waxed and waned at NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD). But there is general recognition that open competition leads to innovation and ingenuity, while having a cost-capped mission limits the growth in the net mission price.³ At the same time, there remain larger, scientific, strategic purposes for large “flagship” missions led by a NASA center, including but not limited to operating an evolving science program that supports iteration as the mission proceeds, as opposed to a more fixed science program, and a need to accomplish a broad suite of objectives rather than a single or small number of tightly relevant objectives (NASEM 2017a).

NASA’s competed missions may be broadly grouped by size, typically within three cost ranges: small size, low-cost missions (<$250 million fiscal year [FY] 2019); medium-size, medium-cost missions ($250 million to $650 million FY2019); and large-size, high-cost missions (>$650 million FY2019). There are also what are called missions of opportunity (MoOs), which are investigations characterized by being part of a non-NASA space mission of any size (either in the United States or an international agency) and having a total NASA cost of under $55 million (FY2019). Competed instruments are a third type of mission opportunity that involve state-of-the-art scientific instruments to be flown as part of a larger mission for the purpose of acquiring information (e.g., images, spectra, in situ particles, and fields, etc.), and the cost of these opportunities span the low-cost to medium-cost mission ranges. Between 1996 and 2019, the total number of competed missions that were proposed is 701, of which 143 (20%) were selected for flight. Over the same time period, the net number of competed instruments that were proposed is 232, of which 46 (20%) were selected for flight. In this report, the review of competed space missions is limited to the last decade (2010-present), in order to focus on factors and issues most relevant to the current era.

With respect to the demographic makeup of the pool of PIs of competed mission proposals, a total of 198 proposals were submitted to NASA SMD between 2010-2019, of which 16% had women PIs. In this same time period, 46 proposals were selected (23%), of which 28% had a woman PI. It is important to note that these data reflect (inferred) gender of PIs, which characterizes the nature of the data currently collected by NASA. Additionally, data on the racial/ethnic background of mission proposal PIs was not available for the committee to consider in this study (see Chapter 3 for a more in-depth discussion of the demographics of competed space mission PIs and teams).

The role of a PI on a competed mission is substantial. The job requires considerable experience in the scientific research field, knowledge of mission design, building of hardware and concepts of mission operation, plus ability to lead and manage a large team of scientists, engineers, and administrators. Currently, PIs tend to be at senior levels of their career (e.g., >20 years since acquiring a PhD), and thus, the demographics of mission PIs most likely reflect the population at such senior levels of career. Consequently, one needs to consider the full pathway in the Earth and space sciences, starting with inspiring young people to engage with science and consider science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers, and following with exposure to space science research (e.g., via undergraduate research experiences), and subsequent training and mentoring at PhD and post-PhD levels, encouraging potential PIs to develop the skills needed to lead a competed mission. While steps are certainly needed

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² See Appendix A for a list of acronyms.

³ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “Foundation for Assessing the Health and Vitality of the NASA Science Mission Directorate,” https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/foundation-for-assessing-the-health-and-vitality-of-the-nasa-science-missiondirectorates-research-communities.

in the short term to bolster diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in the leadership of competed space missions, fully realizing them in the mission PI landscape is a multi-generational challenge.

CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE

In order to address its stated goal of enhancing DEIA in the leadership of space missions, NASA requested that the Space Studies Board (SSB) in collaboration with the Board on Science Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine establish the Committee on Increasing Diversity and Inclusion in the Leadership of Competed Space Missions to conduct a new study of PI-led missions in the space sciences, with respect to diversity within the pool of proposal leaders. National Academies staff recognized that to address the task, the expertise of both space scientists with mission experience as well as social scientists would be needed. To this end, the 14-member expert committee reflects a wide range of disciplinary fields with broad experiences in academia, government agencies, and other institutions involved in space sciences (Appendix D includes brief biographies of the committee members and staff).

Whereas previous SSB committees considered aspects of PI-led missions such as issues affecting cost and schedule (NRC 2006), this committee was specifically tasked with recommending actions to increase DEIA in the leadership of space mission proposals submitted to NASA SMD’s competed space mission programs (see the committee’s charge in Box 1.2). In this report, the committee articulates the end-to-end proposal process for competed space missions and offers recommendations for enhancing DEIA within proposed leadership teams.

STUDY APPROACH

Over the course of this study, the committee held eight fact-finding meetings, heard presentations by past and present representatives of NASA, research institutions, universities, professional societies, as well as social science scholars and representatives from other federal agencies. The topics covered at the meetings included the space sciences workforce demographics; mission proposal development, review and selection; NASA-collected demographic data on proposers; institutional and organizational processes for forming mission teams; policies, procedures, and programming across federal agencies for advancing DEIA in science and engineering (S&E) fields; and social factors impacting DEIA of mission teams, such as intersectionality and interdisciplinarity (see the Preface for the list of all presenters). The committee and study were set up during the COVID-19 pandemic, so the study was an entirely virtual process. The first virtual meeting was held on January 20, 2021, followed by a total of 11 meetings, with the last meeting held November 30 and December 1, 2021.

Unlike traditional consensus studies at the National Academies, the work of this committee primarily revolved around assessing NASA SMD’s mission proposal process by applying committee members’ collective expertise to analyze different facets of the current process in theory and in practice. In this report, some of the evidence considered by the committee is not published in peer-reviewed journals, but rather is the physical and oral documentation of aspects of the process and demographics on proposers as provided to the committee by NASA and representatives of organizations involved in space missions at NASA centers, universities, industry, and research institutes. The committee also leveraged the extensive body of research in the social sciences on equity, inclusion and bias in scientific organizations, and on pathways in STEM education and careers.

Addressing the study charge required that the committee identify and understand barriers to diversity that may exist within the mission proposal process itself. The committee relied in part on public testimony and on the personal experiences of committee members. The committee also drew on qualitative data collected via structured interviews with competed mission PIs in consultation with NORC at the University of Chicago and the findings (see Appendix C) informed the drafting of the report and the committee’s conclusions and recommendations.

Qualitative research involves the systematic examination of social phenomena from the perspective of those individuals who experience them (Guba and Lincoln 1994). Through rigorous data collection and analytical techniques, qualitative research aims to understand phenomena “in terms of the meanings people bring to them” (Denizen and Lincoln 2005). In the context of this study, the committee was interested in understanding how individuals experienced the mission proposal development, preparation, and submission process, including any barriers that they may have encountered before, during, and after the process. Given that the proposal process is a social process and not just a technical one, qualitative methods provided the means to gain an in-depth understanding of how proposers made meaning of these barriers in the context of their identity and previous educational and professional experiences, as well as how they navigated any such barriers. The committee identified qualitative interviewing as the most appropriate method given the research questions that emerged from the study charge and the committee’s review of the relevant literature. Interviewing allowed for comparison across subjects and elucidated the internal motivations and feelings that may drive or result from observable behaviors (Lamont and Swidler 2014). Though not without limitations, the structured interviews allowed the committee to enrich its understanding of how the mission proposal process proceeds in practice. The committee’s decision to only focus on PIs within the context of this qualitative study was motivated by (1) the need to maximize the probability of acquiring a clear, defensible sampling in a very small, pilot study (n <40) and the role of PI is a part of every mission leadership team and (2) the need to identify themes that with reasonable confidence could be attributed to proposal development and submission. This qualitative study represents an important first step, but the committee acknowledges the need for a much larger study in the future that can accommodate the variety of roles and perspectives on mission teams and of aspiring PIs, as well as accommodate sufficient participation to achieve statistical significance. Although the qualitative study population includes those who were ultimately successful at submitting at least one proposal as PI, many also offered their reflections on past unsuccessful experiences.

When reaching conclusions and developing recommendations, the committee drew on multiple streams of evidence, and in particular complemented oral testimonies with evidence from relevant research literatures. When oral testimony was the sole basis of the finding, the committee took care not to present the finding as supported with adequate evidence, but instead framed them as potential issues for NASA SMD to consider and investigate further, without making recommendations for a specific course of action. As a result of these deliberative processes, all conclusions and recommendations outlined in this report, reflect the full consensus of the committee.

Given the committee is tasked to recommend ways to increase diversity and inclusion in the leadership of competed space missions, the committee also benefited from discussions on the various ways that the terms “diversity” and “inclusion,” as well as other terms like “equity,” “accessibility,” and “intersectionality” have been used in the research literature to determine how they would be applied in this report. The committee recognizes that there is not consensus in the field around these terms, and so Box 1.3 reflects this committee’s adoption of definitions of particular terms that guided how these aspects are discussed in this report.

An important factor that the committee gave consideration to in this report is the makeup of the U.S. space science workforce (i.e., astrophysics, Earth sciences, heliophysics, and planetary sciences) and, in particular, the fraction of the workforce comprising foreign-born individuals. For example, data from the American Institute of Physics show that for the past ~30 years, about half of the PhDs in physics were awarded by U.S. universities to foreign-born scientists. Many such students stay in the United States pursuing research careers. Additionally, non-U.S. scientists immigrate as post-doctoral researchers. Thus, a significant fraction of the space science workforce are foreign-born scientists and engineers who make substantial contributions to NASA’s space missions. They also contribute to the diversity of the space sciences workforce, with respect to gender and race/ethnicity.

In this report, however, the focus is placed on the overall domestic S&E workforce for two reasons:

1. It is important to provide opportunities for every U.S.-born person to pursue a career in the space sciences should they want to, particularly increasing the opportunities for individuals from underrepresented communities (NASEM 2019a; Ochoa and McCrary 2021).
2. It is not clear how the supply of foreign talent will change in the near future due to the ebbs and flows with national policies and with demographic and economic realities of source countries (AAAS 2021; Khanna 2021; NSB 2022).

Moreover, the changing demographics in the United States suggests that within 40 years, no single racial or ethnic group will comprise the “majority” population group in the United States, demonstrating potential opportunities to diversify the future space science workforce and to cultivate the next generation of U.S.-born mission leaders. The committee interpreted the charge to “identify humanistic elements of the system that may present impediments to applicants” as requiring an assessment of the full scope of career pathways to PI leadership so that actionable recommendations to improve diversity would be developed.

Lastly, the committee notes that while this study was being carried out, NASA initiated four relevant activities:

1. In early 2021, NASA requested an additional National Academies consensus study, “Foundation for Assessing the Health and Vitality of the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s Research Communities,” to provide guidance on the data that NASA needs to collect to appropriately analyze its research community’s health and vitality and recommend actions to improve the health and vitality of the research community toward realizing NASA research objectives.³
2. In June 2021, NASA released a “Request for Information on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities in NASA Programs, Contracts and Grants Process” to receive public input on NASA’s mission directorates’ programs, procurements, grants, regulations and policies, with the purpose of improving these activities such that systemic inequitable barriers and challenges facing underserved communities are removed (NASA 2021f).
3. In September 2021, NASA SMD released a “Request for Information on Adding Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility Requirements to NASA’s Announcements of Opportunity,” announcing the potential inclusion of explicit DEIA evaluation criteria within the mission proposal process, and requesting input from the broader community on the reasonableness and feasibility of this proposed new requirement (NASA 2021g).
4. In September 2021, NASA also released a DEIA policy statement expressing the agency’s commitment to being a leader in advancing just, equitable, diverse, accessible, and inclusive NASA-funded workforces and NASA’s internal workplaces (NASA 2021e).

The committee commends NASA for enacting a number of efforts that are intentionally focused on DEIA, and it remains to be seen what impact such activities will have on the diversity of the space science workforce and of competed mission leadership.

ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT

This report describes the history and current status of the diversity of PI-led mission teams, the ways in which certain practices have affected the diversity of PI-led missions, and the steps that can be taken to help ensure DEIA within future PI-led missions.

In Chapter 2, the committee maps out the steps typically taken to develop and submit a complete mission proposal. The initial process of team formation and concept development starts months to years before NASA announces an opportunity to propose a relevant type of mission. The subsequent process of constructing the proposal depends on substantial institutional support. Along the way there are both opportunities and barriers to success, including the proposal review process where ways of removing any possible sources of bias are explored.

Chapter 3 presents data on the composition of competed mission teams for four science divisions of NASA SMD: Astrophysics, Heliophysics, Planetary Science, and Earth Science. Before considering the means of increasing diversity and inclusion in the leadership of competed space missions, one needs to consider the demographics of the relevant workforce. The demographics gathered by NASA’s Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES), the primary mechanism for all proposal submissions, are compared with

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³ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “Foundation for Assessing the Health and Vitality of the NASA Science Mission Directorate,” https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/foundation-for-assessing-the-health-and-vitality-of-the-nasa-science-missiondirectorates-research-communities.

workforce data gleaned from published surveys of the space sciences and from reports on the demographics in S&E fields at the national level.

In examining the lack of diversity in the space sciences workforce, understanding typical career tracks is key. Chapter 4 discusses the state of education-career pathways into the space sciences from the undergraduate level into professional stages and identifies potential opportunities for bolstering the participation of underrepresented communities in competed space missions.

Along education-career pathways into the space sciences, and ultimately into mission PI-ship, both facilitators and barriers of success exist. Chapter 5 describes some of the factors that may hinder the development, preparation, and submission of successful competed mission proposals, as well as diversity in the space sciences workforce more broadly. This chapter also describes the disproportionate impact of various factors on communities that remain underrepresented in the space science workforce and draws on the commissioned qualitative research study of the experiences of a sample of PIs in putting together a competed space mission proposal.

Other science agencies manage large, PI-led multi-institutional projects—the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, etc.—and also seek to promote DEIA in these projects and within STEM fields more broadly. Chapter 6 describes some of the evidence-based, promising, and emerging practices that have been employed at the federal level for fostering DEIA that would be useful for NASA to consider toward realizing its stated goal of ensuring a diverse pool of proposal leadership teams.

Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the core findings and recommendations to NASA, to institutional partners, and to future proposers. The recommendations presented in Chapter 7 directed to NASA are mainly aimed at the four science divisions of SMD—specifically Heliophysics, Astrophysics, Planetary Science, and Earth Science—because the competed missions are managed by these divisions. At the same time, most of the recommendations could also apply to all areas of NASA, and if the suggested actions were carried out throughout the agency, it would lead to a more diverse workforce across NASA.