The soviets were the first one to be able to put together a space program and
actually put a space craft into orbit and they
were the one's that drove our initiative to begin that process ourselves.
The launch of Sputnik in 1957, when that went into orbit, it really triggered and
catalyzed the need within the U.S.
of having this kind of broad-based integrative science type of program.
And then since that time period, it was actually formally founded in 1958.
NASA has been a singularly important opportunity to conduct integrated science.
In fact, the whole idea that to answer some of the fundamental questions we have
about the history of life, the history of the Earth, evolution itself,
what can we predict in terms of global warming and global environmental changes.
That kind of integrated science was really born of that moment
when NASA was put together because there weren't other opportunities.
The scientific fields were put into their categories of physics and chemistry and
economics and what have you, and they weren't talking to each other.
And indeed if you look at the history of Professor Karl here at Illinois,
Karl's capability to get some funding to continue his groundbreaking work,
which actually lead to the development of the three branch tree of life.
That was the only funding agency that would step forward to do such a avant
garde early development and high risk type of a scientific endeavor.
NASA was the only one who would step up to be able to do that.
So NASA itself has been really if you looked at the future of science as
a large balloon with a dark volume inside, the little pinprick of light and
hope has been NASA itself because it opened the door to integrative research.
And then, because of the scale that which NASA operated, the instrumentation
that was needed to launch instruments into space, spacecraft, create the kind
of ground-based telescopes, and radar arrays, and things that we need.
Those require a financial infrastructure that normally the federal government can
get behind.
So at the same time that NASA was formed in response to the Sputnik,
it actually catalyzed this integrated base for
broad base large scale science on a global basis.
The other thing about NASA is that it is the place for the exploration for life on
other planets and it is the place to look towards the solar system as the future.
And, as comfortable as we all are, given that most of us are from Earth,
the future at some point is going to be on other planets and so NASA is that
vehicle to look towards the stars and be able to drive science in that direction.
One of the things that NASA is dedicated to, of course, is the search for
life throughout the solar system.
And that one level, that search for life is the fall of the water.
Without H2O, life we know it is not capable of existence.
And so NASA's integrative approach using the astrobiology roadmap to
define where to look for
life throughout the universe is a really fundamentally sound scientifically and
has created a scientific framework with which to move forward with this.
So ongoing programs now that we have Mars, with multiple landings now and the early
planning and preparation stages now to actually put people on Mars is underway.
Titan and Europa are both other highly desirable,
potentially habitable environments,
in large part because of the presence of water on those planetary bodies.
So, the thing that's extremely exciting is to be able to have this exploration based
approach to the solar system.
Have that driven by sound scientific analysis, and testing, and
hypothesis development and then have that all couched within this idea that
evolution needs to be brought into the framework of understanding what we see.
So, if we land on Mars and we get a rock sample, and we have some water, and
we have a contextual condition there in which to make interpretations or
the search for life.
Then, that's going to be broadly based in a context of evolution itself, and, again,
NASA is one of the few places where that evolutionary context is brought directly
to bear at the very beginning of the endeavor.
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