The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of Astrobiology 081353447X, 9780813534473

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THE LIVING

UNIVERSE

NASA and the development of

Astrobiology Steven J. D ick

AND

James E . Strick

The Living Universe is a comprehensive, historically nuanced study of the formation of the new scientific discipline of exobiology and its transformation into astrobiology. Among many other themes, the authors analyze how research on the origin of life became wedded to the search for life on other planets and for extraterrestrial intelligence. Many scientific breakthroughs of the last forty years were either dlrectly supported or indirectly spun off from NASA's exobiology program, including cell symbiosis, the discovery of the Archaea, and the theories of Nuclear r and the asteroid extinction of the

'I'he .(jving Universe

The !Jving Universe NASA AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF AsTROBIOLOGY

•

STEVEN J. DICK AND JAMES E. STRICK

Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London

The NASA Vision To improve life here, To extend life to there, To find life beyond -Announced by NASA Administrator, Sean O'Keefe, April 12, 2002.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-P"!lblication Data

Dick, Steven J. The living universe : NASA and the development of astrobiology I Steven J. Dick and James E. Strick. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8135-3447-X (hardcover: alk. paper) 1. Exobiology-History. 2. Life on other planets-Research-History. 3. United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I. Strick, James Edgar, 1956- II. Title. QH325.D53 2004 576.8'39-dc22 2004004037

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2004 by Steven J. Dick and James E. Strick All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8099. The only exception to this prohibition is "fair use" as defined by U.S. copyright law. The publication program of Rutgers University Press is supported by the Board of Governors of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Manufactured in the United States of America

Astrobiology: The study of the living universe. This field provides a scientific foundation for a multidisciplinary study of (I) the origin and distribution of life in the universe, (2) an understanding of the role of gravity in living systems, and (3) the study of the Earths atmospheres and ecosystems. -NASA strategic plan, 1996 (First mention of astrobiology in a published NASA document, redefined from exobiology)

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations and Acronyms

xi

Introduction

1

PARTI 'Before the Jpace Vhich Marcy and Butler played no role), the SFSU team was unable to achieve long-term precision better than one hundred meters per second. After hundreds of blind alleys and innumerable dead ends, by early 1992 their longterm precision was down to twenty meters per second.35

172

The Living Universe

Up to this point Marcy and Butler's work had been supported entirely by the NSF, and, when Marcy received his first three-year NASA grant beginning in 1992, it was not from the planetary science program but from an "Innovative Research program" designed to support risky but potentially high-yield projects. Even then, the NASA referees were skeptical of the prospects for success; the minimal grant paid Butler's first postdoc salary. With crucial improvements to · the Lick-Hamilton spectrograph carried out by Steve Vogt in November 1994 and incremental improvements to the software, Marcy and Butler were able to reach three meters per second by May 1995. It was October when the Swiss team made its first announcement of a planet around 51 Pegasi, confirmed by Marcy and Butler about two weeks later. During the following years of continuous discoveries, the NSF continued to provide the bulk of the team's funding, with some support from NASA, most notably in continued access to the Keck telescopes. Looking back at fifteen years of work of the Marcy-Butler team, Butler was lavish in his praise of NSF funding and critical of NASA's conservative attitude. It was an interesting contrast to the biological component of exobiology, in which just the opposite had been true from the early 1960s.36 With many studies behind it, and despite its failure to back the team that actually cracked the problem in 1995, NASA would now embrace the search for planetary systems beyond the wildest dreams of the TOPS team. Dan Goldin's entry onto the stage as NASA's administrator on 1 April 1992 would prove crucial to this new direction for the space agency.

Planetary Systems and the Search for Origins As the twentieth century neared its end, attention to the problem of planetary systems reached new heights. Researchers realized that technology was ripe to open a new field. Studies in increasingly greater detail were undertaken demonstrating how planets could be observed from Earth and from space, using a variety of technologies, including "normal" (filled aperture) space telescopes and space interferometry. Genuine results were also being announced. The discovery by the Swiss team of Michel Major and Didier Queloz in October 1995 of a planet around a Sun-like star, followed by a raft of similar discoveries by Marcy, Butler, and others, fed the new field and gave it intense excitement. 37 Observations of circumstellar disks, possible protoplanetary systems, were increasing again, after the initial discoveries of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite in the early 1980s. NASA continued to contribute to the field by funding researchers and with the Hubble Space Telescope's observations in 1994 of possible protoplanetary disks around 56 of 110 young stars in the Orion Nebula. 38 Beginning in the 1970s, NASA had also funded an important series of "Protostars and Planets" meetings that brought together researchers in the field; originally largely theoretical, these meetings increasingly reported observational results. Perhaps most important of all from a programmatic and funding viewpoint, the search for planetary systems became an important part of the bold

The Search for Planetary Systems

173

new overarching program at NASA known as Origins. Under its banner planetary systems science was assured of continued attention and funding. Three studies provided the backbone for the Origins program, although no one knew when the studies began that they would coalesce into a connected program. Even as the Solar System Exploration Division's TOPS group was meeting, the Astrophysics Division of NASA's Office of Space Science had created a Space Interferometry Science Working Group (SISWG) to follow up on the 1991 National Research Council Bahcall Report, which had recommended the start of an Astrometric Interferometry Mission, with the search for planetary systems being a major justification. This group was charged with deciding whether the JPL/Shao Orbiting Stellar Interferometer or Reasenberg's POINTS should be selected for development, a process at NASA known euphemistically as "downselecting." The committee met over the next four years and, after many twists and turns, received a revised charge in 1995 to decide on an instrument that could act as a technology precursor for interferometers being proposed by other committees for planet searches in the long term. The committee certifie