Advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Leadership of Competed Space Missions (2022) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 8-16
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From page 8... ...
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.
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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)
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-- Discovery, Planetary Science Lunar Prospector, PI Alan Binder Stardust, PI Robert Brownlee 1995 First competed Astrophysics instrument with woman PI -- launched PCA on Rossi XTE, PI Jean Swank 1997 First openly competed MIDEX mission AO IMAGE, PI James Burch -- Heliophysics WMAP, PI Charles Bennett -- Astrophysics 1997 First competed Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) launched GRACE, PI Byron Tapley 1999 Competed instruments on Earth Observing System launched 2002 Competed instrument on James Webb Space Telescope with woman PI NIRCam, PI Marcia Rieke 2002 First openly competed New Frontiers mission selected Juno, PI Scott Bolton 2005 First Astrophysics competed SMEX missions with a woman PI selected NuStar, PI Fiona Harri son GEMS, PI Jean Swank 2005 First mission of opportunity (MoO)
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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)
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7. Recommend ranges of activities and choices that individuals may make during their career to enhance the likelihood of individual success as a future leader of a competed space mission.
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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.
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. 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.
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at the macro socio-structural level. Race: Socially constructed and historically contingent categorizations of humans based on perceptions of shared physical and/or social traits.
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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.
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