Summary

Not since the Apollo era have U.S. capabilities and ambitions for space exploration grown in intensity or breadth of interest as is seen in the present. More astronauts conduct more experiments in space now than ever before. Commercial trips to space expand participation in science and spawn increased desires for personal space travel. Industrial processes are being developed for space, and NASA is headed back to the Moon with the Artemis program, and then on to Mars. All of this exists because the United States has invested in the science and technology to further develop space-based research and applications. Research in the biological and physical sciences has been critical to those advances being humanly possible, safer than ever before, and inspiring. For the United States to continue to lead among the pioneering nations that embrace space exploration for both national security and global sustainability interests, it is necessary to resolve several scientific challenges that leverage or require the space environment in the coming decade. For the United States to thrive in that international competition and to benefit the majority of citizens who will not themselves travel to space, it is imperative to foster a biological and physical sciences (BPS) research and technology community that includes scholars, practitioners, explorers, and enthusiasts. This goal can be accomplished by substantially increasing national investment in BPS research infrastructure and investigators, concentrating U.S. effort on ambitious yet focused key scientific questions that strategically advance space exploration and transform knowledge of how the world works, and considering new investment in large-scale research campaigns.

The past decade saw the launching of new capabilities and scientific experiments into space, providing a deeper understanding of our planet, solar system, and universe. Human presence in space enables complex operations and observations. Additionally, space experiments have changed the understanding of the physical nature of the universe, led to the development of unique materials, and given insight into plant, animal, and microbial health and productivity in the extreme environment of space. Progress in understanding the effects of extended space travel on human health has led to new findings on aging; musculoskeletal, respiratory, and neurological health; and host–pathogen interactions. These successes have fueled further exploration ambitions, with more humans spending time in space and reaching out beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), separated from the rich and protective resources of Earth. The Committee on the Biological and Physical Sciences Research in Space 2023–2032 of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine envisions a future that is encapsulated in the name of this report: Thriving in Space: Ensuring the Future of Biological and Physical Sciences Research: A Decadal Survey for 2023–2032. This report sets forth the priorities and challenges in scientific pursuits that position the United States not just to participate and survive in that expanding sphere of discovery but also to lead and flourish in the coming decade, as

the nation returns humans to the Moon and reaches on toward Mars. The recommendations, key scientific questions (KSQs), overarching themes, and research campaigns in this report guide the country toward that future.

Current excitement in the benefits and urgency of space exploration is driven by several key developments. The return of humans to the Moon through the NASA Artemis program is occurring during a time of tremendous public and commercial interest in traveling into deep space. The commercial development of space, especially in LEO, is occurring as science on the International Space Station (ISS) invites both discovery and application. The burgeoning launch capacity from the United States, combining capacity provided by government and private entities, has fueled public interest, including the advent of civilian spaceflight participants, while diversifying the opportunities to study and exploit the space environment.

The world is entering a new era fueled by humanity’s connection to space and marked by greater opportunities, interest, resources, and innovation than ever before, rivaling and indeed exceeding the magnitude and relevance of the Apollo era. At the same time, there are many significant challenges in Earth-based societies, such as impact of population growth and climate change on the environment and civil organization. The success of NASA and the United States in fully developing this new era depends on the nation’s ability to effectively address the wide range of engineering, biological, and physical sciences needed to explore space safely and productively. That the nation now stands on this threshold is a direct result of implementations from the first and pivotal decadal survey of this community, Recapturing a Future for Space Exploration: Life and Physical Sciences Research for a New Era (NRC 2011). That survey in 2011 set about the task of rebuilding the science necessary for space exploration and enabling science to be done from space to benefit Earth. The science community has indeed recaptured that vision; it is now critical for the nation to secure the path forward.

This report presents a high-priority research strategy to enable and derive knowledge from the exploration of space in the decade just begun, 2023–2032. Federal investment in this science occurs primarily through the NASA Division of Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS Division), now within the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). However, space exploration missions—and especially the exploitation of space environments for science and technology—are increasingly supported by other government agencies and the private sector. Therefore, in developing its recommendations, the committee was keenly aware of the lead role of NASA in forming a hub, linking its mission to the interests of other government agencies and the increasingly important commercial entities supporting exploration and development. Constituent panels of the committee identified critical fundamental science opportunities, including those that support and are supported by human presence in space and that are enabled by this potentially synergistic public/private network. Those science opportunities are expressed in the form of KSQs that are the priorities for the next decade. This summary highlights the committee’s top findings and recommendations based on those priorities.

STATE OF THE SCIENCE

The past decade experienced a very large expansion in new routes to space and new uses for space exploration, with concomitant increased capacities and utilization of space science platforms. One example of the results of this expansion is the science output from the ISS, driven by international academia, government researchers, and the commercial sector. More than 3,000 experiments have been run on the ISS over the past 2 decades, with nearly twice the publications in the past decade compared to the previous one (Witze 2020). More than 2,000 science publications emanated from ISS research since 1998 (Guzman 2023; Johnson 2022). The private investment in space has grown from $300 million in the United States in 2012 to over $10 billion today (Bland et al. 2022). These investments seeded new ways to move experiments and people into space and fueled ambitions to create commercial space stations to further enable science and manufacturing, while also inserting a certain tension of priorities between program offices. The United States stood up the Space Force as a branch of the armed services¹ and developed a national strategy for LEO research and development (NSTC 2023). The rise of industry and expanded space programs in the United States and other nations also increased the size and diversity of the space-oriented workforce on Earth and in space.

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¹ United States Space Force, “United States Space Force History,” https://www.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/About-Space-Force/History.

Additional parts of the expansion of new routes to space include the transition of the ISS to commercial LEO, commercial suborbital vehicles, orbital vehicles from several countries and agencies, and the Artemis lunar exploration program. All of these routes provide potential science venues for BPS research, as well as emergent science needs that BPS researchers are well-suited to address.

STATE OF THE PROFESSION

In part, the 2011 decadal survey was a call to action for the space exploration science community, NASA, and the nation. The committee finds that NASA and the science community answered that call. NASA stood up the Division of Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Application, which later became BPS and moved to SMD. The creation of the BPS Division and its subsequent placement in SMD resulted in a scientifically engaged division that is perceived to be moving to accommodate the science intensive needs of space exploration. The science community has developed a level of accomplishment and stability; however, the community has been severely underfunded to meet the large portfolio of science deemed important in the 2011 decadal survey. This conclusion is based on surveying the size of the community relative to the work needed, as well as the funding available relative to the amount of activity in space. During the space shuttle era, funding for the equivalent NASA division was approximately eightfold higher than current funding within NASA (NASEM 2018). Yet, as this report will argue, the opportunity and demand for science served by human exploration and use of space are more numerous and ambitious than the past eras, and science now operates continuously in LEO compared to the episodic orbital sorties that characterized those past eras. There is therefore an increasingly apparent and critical risk of underfunding this foundational area of science, the science that is an engine for innovation in space and on Earth. Last, research enabled by unique access to the space environment confers Earth-based benefits, including national security as well as human and environmental health.

Finding: NASA responded to the 2011 decadal survey by standing up what is now the Division of Biological and Physical Sciences within the Science Mission Directorate. As a result, the scientific community in these important and diverse fields has begun to be rebuilt. Importantly, however, much work remains to establish a healthy and sustainable biological and physical sciences community with resources commensurate with its long-term scientific and technological mission. Much of this work lies in the area of funding beyond simple inflationary adjustments toward large investments that scale to the work needed, similar to the levels that existed during the space shuttle era. (Chapter 7, Finding 1)

Finding: A robust and resilient BPS program requires

• A healthy and regular cadence of proposal calls and grant dollar awards that are consistent with sustaining a diverse and productive BPS community over the course of the next decade, including the necessity of training a diverse scientific workforce of sufficient size and caliber to maintain the BPS community over a generational timescale;
• Broadened and more inclusive participation in the U.S. BPS community, including diversity of both scientific expertise and lived socioeconomic experience, recognizing the slow progress in attracting and retaining women and persons of color into graduate and post-graduate research roles;
• A total science budget sufficient to meet current national needs and international competitor/collaborator challenges;
• Interactions with other U.S. government and non-U.S. space agencies necessary for optimal BPS community productivity in science and technology development; and
• Significant awareness and collaboration with the emerging commercial space science, platforms, and activities, as appropriate for BPS program goals. (Chapter 7, Finding 2)

Finding: The BPS program is severely underfunded relative to current need, essentially preventing the development of a truly robust and resilient program that can meet the space exploration science needs of the nation. (Chapter 7, Finding 10)

The recommended funding increase is an inescapable conclusion based on three driving forces—cost analysis, political reality, and historical precedence—that all converge to strongly suggest that the BPS budget must rise by a factor of 10 well before the end of the decade. (See Chapter 7, Box 7-2.) Research campaigns can be considered only if the recommended increase in funding occurs. This funding recommendation is also based on the assumption that transportation costs and mission integration and operations costs will continue to reside outside of the BPS budget, in other units of NASA.

Recommendation: To retire many of the key scientific questions by the end of the decade, NASA should establish support for the Biological and Physical Sciences Program to levels that reflect the current national need and to build the science community in size, diversity of technical expertise and lived experience, and capability to reach the science goals of the nation, toward levels that are an order of magnitude above the current funding and well before the end of the decade. (Chapter 7, Recommendation 9)

Space is no longer a realm solely explored and inhabited by agencies of nations. Significant commercial interests now characterize virtually all space venues, from suborbital space through LEO and on to the Moon and Mars. Appropriately, NASA seeks to enable those commercial developments while simultaneously becoming a user of those developments for national science needs. A prime example lies in those companies currently engaged with NASA in the Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program, who in collaboration with NASA are working to ensure that capacity and capability is available to meet research needs after the ISS end of life that is anticipated by the end of this decade. The recognized goal is impactful science, both national and commercial, conducted under conditions of certainty and reliability regarding the availability of one or more multi-user platforms in LEO.

Finding: The private sector is engaged in development of commercial LEO destinations, on which the nation’s research in BPS will depend. However, science-design requirements have yet to be published. This delay may result in an unintended consequence that CLD companies develop revenue sources to focus on commercial markets, deemphasizing government-funded or fundamental research for public benefit. (Chapter 7, Finding 3)

Recommendation: Because the nation benefits from global leadership in space science and technology, and given the emergence of commercial platforms that can be tasked to the nation’s science, NASA should:

• Seek significant funding increases for biological and physical sciences with new monies or through rebalancing the portfolio across the Science Mission Directorate, and in coordination with other U.S. government agencies, as the community needs to grow significantly in size to reach the science goals of the nation;
• Actively engage commercial spaceflight firms, using science funding as a driver and with all due haste, to ensure that science needs are met with clear priority, guaranteeing that national science needs are enabled along with those of potential commercial customers using those platforms; and
• Ensure that the funded science community fully engages diversity and inclusivity in the pursuit of the nation’s space exploration science priorities.

(Chapter 7, Recommendation 1)

ESTABLISHING SCIENCE PRIORITIES

Starting from an initial set of hundreds of community-submitted input papers and the decade of published articles, three interdisciplinary panels of U.S. experts worked with the committee to establish the current state of knowledge and capabilities in BPS (Chapters 1 and 2) as a baseline of opportunity for research in the coming

decade. From this diverse and wide-ranging input arose three themes and a set of key scientific questions (KSQs) that prioritize science that enables safe and ambitious space exploration (see Chapter 4), and science that is enabled by access to space (see Chapter 5). These themes and KSQs form the core science recommended for BPS and need to be supported by the entire BPS core funding within NASA.

The first theme, Adapting to Space, concerns how the fundamental physics of space environments impact the ability of living systems to survive transition to and extended stays in space. The second theme, Living and Traveling in Space, explores living systems and supportive environments over long durations in space, while deriving resources in space under the logistical and physical constraints of space. The third theme, Probing Phenomena Hidden by Gravity or Terrestrial Limitations, seeks scientific insights that can be found only in space.

These KSQs were, by design and where possible, intended to be biologically motivated yet physics aware or physics motivated yet biologically aware, but recognizing that there could be subquestions framed as purely biological or physical. Importantly, and as a result of the maturity and increasing interdisciplinarity of space science research over the past decade, many KSQs are broader than any one scientific discipline—spanning multiple biological species, material classes, or physical principles. These concepts of interdisciplinarity and comprehensiveness informed all of the recommendations.

Recommendation: NASA should direct its research resources toward the key scientific questions identified in this study (Table S-1 and Chapters 3, 4, and 5). (Chapter 3, Recommendation 1)

Recommendation: NASA should work with other U.S. government agencies and other nations’ space agencies to coordinate research resources toward the key scientific questions, as relevant to multiple agency missions. (Chapter 3, Recommendation 2)

TABLE S-1 Key Scientific Questions in BPS Space Research Over the Decade 2023–2032

Recommendation: Because key questions identified in this study benefit from access to multiple spaceflight-related platforms, the Biological and Physical Sciences Program should

• Coordinate funding opportunities with the Space Technology Mission Directorate such that access to the range of spaceflight and spaceflight-related platforms is efficiently employed to answer key science questions, especially those questions that inform technology development for space exploration; and
• Maintain a foundational approach to science, building through a strong, vibrant program of ground-based, suborbital, orbital, lunar, martian, and beyond missions.

(Chapter 7, Recommendation 3)

RESEARCH CAMPAIGNS

The KSQs present imperatives that demand a level of activity—research community growth, replicate experiments, and increased access to space environments and crew time—that is currently insufficiently resourced. Therefore, this study explored the concept of research campaigns to drive synergistic sets of KSQs toward resolution and impactful societal milestones within the next decade. The research campaigns are highly directed efforts on a scale that is large, scientifically robust and dedicated to specific mission queries in a manner common within other divisions of SMD. They were chosen by prioritizing significance, feasibility of scientific goals, and potential for capability building.

Research campaigns would be a new approach at the BPS Division. The BPS Division currently directs budget to advancement of scientific areas defined in the 2011 decadal survey. Research campaigns, however, are designed to directly address specific science goals that could be driven to completion. BPS research campaigns conceptually align with SMD spacecraft missions in scope of inquiry, mission duration, acceptable risk, and cost. For this reason and for the first time in this decadal survey series, the committee conducted technical risk and cost evaluation (TRACE) for the research campaigns. This exercise informed an analysis of multiple potential campaigns and resulted in two research campaigns to be considered for new funding and two futuristic concepts to be considered only with multi-agency inputs.

Research campaigns of the next decade are not presented as priorities within the current BPS budget model. Specifically, campaigns are not meant to supplant the current granting process that is recommended herein to focus on KSQs. Rather they are presented as directed, large-scale efforts to be pursued only with the addition of budget specifically directed to the full execution of the campaign. They are intended to be additional components of the BPS science portfolio beyond the budget currently dedicated to BPS science.

Recommendation: NASA should pursue dedicated research campaigns that, through the coming decade, will drive solutions to specific groups of key scientific questions. Coordination beyond NASA, including other federal agencies and the private sector as well as public–private partnerships, should be considered for the dedicated new funding and materials to support these research campaigns.

• BLiSS (Bioregenerative Life Support Systems) to build and understand the systems that would provide high-quality food, refresh air and water, process wastes, and enable the creation of space environments sustainable for long periods of time independent of Earth.
• MATRICES (Manufacturing Materials and Processes for Sustainability in Space) to understand and harness the physical processes by which materials and complex fluids can be repeatably utilized in space, to enable sustainable exploration and circular lifecycles for the built environment on Earth and in space.

(Chapter 6, Recommendation 1)

Campaign: Bioregenerative Life Support Systems

BLiSS is targeted to build sufficient knowledge of the biological systems, interactions, and systems of systems to provide high-quality food, refresh air and water, process and valorize wastes, and enable the creation of

space environments sustainable for long periods of time independent of Earth. Sustainable bioregenerative life support has been a science goal for many decades and is encompassed within NASA’s technology roadmap, which states that self-sufficient life support systems are crucial for sustaining life and mitigating negative physiological effects on long-duration missions. This campaign seeks to understand the multiple biological phenomena at play while providing a distinct technology gain for space exploration and also presenting high return-on-investment for development of sustainable technologies for Earth.

Campaign: Manufacturing Materials and Processes for Sustainability in Space

MATRICES maps advances in materials science and manufacturing via in-space research both to advance fundamental knowledge of physical principles enabled by space and to create approaches that will enable future human space exploration in sustainably built environments. This campaign addresses two challenges in the journey and destination of space travel and habitation: (1) limited mass of resources launched from Earth for long journeys, and (2) limited knowledge of how to repeatably use Earth-origin and space-origin resources to manufacture and repair the world around us, with minimal impact to that world. This campaign envisions the types of materials science, complex fluid dynamics, and manufacturing, near and far from equilibrium conditions, that will be enabled over the next decade in an expected ecosystem that includes ISS, commercial space destinations in LEO, and planetary space experimental platforms. This vision enables both public- and private-sector resources for new science and engineering outcomes that advance science while demonstrating that the concept of circular material and process design will also benefit Earth-based processing and products.

Multi-Agency Initiatives and Stretch Concepts

The study identified an ambitious and scientifically transformative effort described here as an initiative rather than a campaign. It is framed as multi-decadal and requiring whole-of-government investment and coordination. The Probing the Fabric of Spacetime (PFaST) initiative is centered on deploying an advanced quantum sensing network whose performance will be many orders of magnitude better than previously thought possible, enabled by scientific discoveries that occurred only recently and that will be continuously refined throughout the decades to come. Establishing space-based optical lattice clocks (OLCs) for ultraprecise quantum sensing will enable breakthrough science for probing the fabric of spacetime within the solar system and beyond the solar system, while testing whether gravitation fields have quantum aspects. This initiative would be at the forefront of developing quantum technologies with a huge indirect Earth benefit, notably quantum sensing, computing, and quantum information processing.

The study also identified a novel BPS research infrastructure concept—the Biological and Physical Science Free Flyer (BiPS-Free) vehicle for polar-orbital, untended space science research venues addresses current constraints of crew-tended, LEO-limited BPS research, including months-long access by non-human living organisms and engineered materials to the gravitational forces and cosmic ray radiation exposure beyond LEO.

THRIVING IN THE FACE OF UNCERTAINTY

The KSQs and research campaigns were prioritized in the context of the rapid spaceflight evolution and Earth-based knowledge advancement anticipated over the coming decade. In mounting resources to answer these scientific questions and mission-style research campaigns, the “so what?” of successful research outcomes must be compelling even when the practical utility is not immediate. The uncertainties span the pace of technological change, available funding levels and economic stability in the United States, geopolitical tensions and cooperation, ISS and CLDs and service provider stability, launch cost and frequency for space science research, and competition to recruit and retain the nation’s best minds to address BPS challenges. In addition, the underlying pace of BPS portfolio fields is among the most rapid in the world, and this rapid change is unlike that faced by other space sciences. Thus, while this decadal survey intentionally identified KSQs and notional research campaigns, a process needs to exist to adapt, evaluate, and pivot as new opportunities and threats emerge. Decision rules that guide the potential for major changes—in public funding availability, access to space assets for BPS research, commercial destination

and payload services, NASA missions, or international cooperation—over the decade will help to stabilize BPS research following negative changes and capitalize quickly on opportunities following positive changes (Chapter 7). Chief among the decision rules is the concept of pursuing research campaigns only with new funding beyond typical BPS research efforts, returning to the themes and KSQs when new platforms or opportunities are presented.

Recommendation: To maintain research campaign momentum, NASA should require external advisory committees to evaluate research campaign team progress and emergent technologies annually. (Chapter 7, Recommendation 2)

SUSTAINING A THRIVING, NATIONAL BPS RESEARCH COMMUNITY

For space science to thrive, the community of research needs to be diverse, inclusive, and accessible to the full range of U.S. talent. Ensuring broad access and participation is essential to maximizing excellence in an environment of fierce competition for limited human resources, and to ensuring continued U.S. leadership in space exploration. The committee applauds the hard-earned progress that has been made—most notably with respect to the entry and prominence of women in the field—as well as the exemplary goals and intentions of NASA science leadership. However, much work remains to be done to address the particularly persistent and troubling issues of historically underrepresented groups in BPS research within academia, industry, and government. A related critical issue in retaining talent within the BPS community is the difficulties in ensuring funding over the course of a person’s training endeavors.

Finding: The BPS program and the community it supports are increasingly diverse and inclusive, yet work still needs to be done to ensure momentum and broader participation at all levels of the research enterprise. (Chapter 7, Finding 15)

In 2022, the National Academies’ Space Studies Board produced two reports addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in principal investigator–led space science missions and the health and vitality of the space science communities. Both studies were requested by NASA. Titled Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Leadership of Competed Space Missions, and Foundations of a Healthy and Vital Research Community for NASA Science, these reports covered NASA’s SMD. The Advancing report outlined near- and long-term actions that NASA can take to make opportunities for leadership and involvement in competed space missions more accessible, inclusive, and equitable. Recommendations included changes to the mission proposal process as well as investments in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and career pathways. Many of the report’s recommendations can also be applied broadly to research at NASA and other federal agencies and institutions, leading to a more diverse research workforce. The Foundations report identified the characteristics of a healthy and vital research community, defined implementable measures for assessing the health and vitality of a research community, described the types of data that NASA should be collecting to enable future assessments of the health and vitality of the scientific work force, and recommended best practices to improve the health and vitality of NASA’s research communities. Several of that report’s recommendations, as well as its “tenets of a healthy and vital research community,” can also be applied to other federal agencies and institutions.

Notably, the BPS Division was not included in the above NASA studies because the BPS Division does not have competed space science missions as do the other four SMD divisions. However, shared responsibility to foster BPS research excellence in the United States—by NASA as one of the primary funders of the space science research community and by sponsored investigators who build and mentor their research teams—is included as part of the decision rules that were part of this decadal survey’s statement of task. (See Chapter 7, Box 7-1.) This explicitly comprises expectations and suggested mechanisms to annually increase the inclusive participation of BPS researchers including students, postdoctoral researchers and technical staff, and research team leaders of broader lived experience over the coming decade.

BPS science on fundamental biological processes, both within and among organisms in the animal, plant, and microbial kingdoms, complements and informs NASA’s Human Research Program (HRP), which is focused directly on human astronaut safety and health. (See Appendix D.) HRP and the BPS Division co-develop roadmaps

that articulate roles and responsibilities for specific tasks; however, the BPS–HRP relationship is based on the working-level arrangements rather than on formal coordination. Vitally important research in and for human space exploration would move forward and the outcomes could be shared and coordinated, not be circumscribed artificially by programmatic funding boundaries. Thus, given the important opportunity for synergy among these research communities and NASA resources to improve human well-being, it will be imperative in the coming decade that scientific exchange (of plans, data, and communication of important results) and coordination (of opportunities and funding) are prioritized between the BPS Division and HRP.

Recommendation: NASA should continue to strengthen the science exchange between the Biological and Physical Sciences Program and the Human Research Program. Such effort may include establishing a coordinating body and shared research initiatives as well as the two-way exchange of technologies, data, mission science, specimen banking, and plans. (Chapter 4, Recommendation 1)

Additionally, as this decadal survey is concluded in the U.S. Year of Open Science (White House 2023), it is timely to note the important historic investments and advancements in the sharing of data and physical artifacts among the BPS community. Investment by NASA and the whole of government in curated, maintained databases and physical repositories has been critical to the ability to gain more insight and value from each research project than could be achieved by only the original investigator team. Findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) access principles (Wilkinson et al. 2016) for research data and artifacts will also become increasingly important. Continued emphasis on open science encourages the research community to use existing data for improved (or reduced) design of experiments, and offers the potential to build the space science research community beyond those investigators who are directly funded to generate such data.

Recommendation: NASA should continue to expand the investment in open and shared computational infrastructure (CI) to support storage, analysis, and dissemination of its biological and physical data, while ensuring linkage to the original and archived samples.

• For biological sciences, GeneLab should be continued and efforts made to ensure findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable access from other critical international biological resource CIs.
• NASA should recognize the need for long-term investment to maintain, update, and improve such community-serving CI and physical repositories over time.

(Chapter 7, Recommendation 6)

Quite distinct from the prior decade, the increased participation of the private sector in space exploration and destinations has increased both the potential capacity for and complexity of BPS research in space environments. With the anticipated sunsetting of the ISS within the coming decade, NASA investment priorities will need to drive commercial supplier support through the transition to commercial platforms. The substantial investment that NASA has made in BPS research on behalf of U.S. taxpayers, including the costs of launching key experiments to the ISS, has been critical to the current progress of BPS research but has been less visible to the research community itself. (See Figure S-1.) Private-sector development of BPS research platforms and destinations can advance national priorities, but NASA’s leadership and support of fundamental research with societal benefit will remain critical as costs and access approaches remain uncharted territory for BPS. NASA thus plays an important role in coordinating this new space science ecosystem.

Recommendation: NASA should work with the other appropriate U.S. government agencies with a goal to establish an office or a mechanism for commercial sponsorship and collaboration with nonprofit organizations, including academia and government research agencies. That office/mechanism should have the primary focus of

• Coordinating the work between these commercial sectors and government agencies;
• Providing guidance on or facilitating research compliance, data security, and material transfer agreements, including prototype agreements;

• Representing multiple space environments and destinations (e.g., not only the International Space Station in low Earth orbit); and
• Communicating these opportunities to the research community.

(Chapter 7, Recommendation 7)

The challenges of space exploration to the Moon and on the way to Mars will be realized in the coming decade. Adapting to, living and traveling in, and leveraging the space environment to maximum responsible U.S. advantage comprise a charge to which the BPS space research community including the U.S. public and private sectors can respond with focused enthusiasm. Thriving in Space: Ensuring the Future of Biological and Physical Sciences Research charts the progress, potential, and pitfalls that are anticipated, as well as approaches to pivoting as technological successes or surprises unfold over the coming decade. The following chapters describe the findings and recommendations that will together ensure the future of space exploration and the well-being of society on Earth, through the resilient and collaborative efforts of the nation’s BPS research community. This is indeed an awesome era in which science can contribute to a brighter future on our home planet and beyond.