Origins
Through the 1980s and 1990s, NASA was often criticized for having relatively unimpressive and uncompelling long-term plans for human spaceflight, although the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope programs were notable engineering and management achievements. At the same time, NASA’s science programs – especially, the space sciences – were widely regarded as successful examples of long-range planning and execution: the robotic Mars and outer Solar System missions, as well as the space astronomy programs. As a consequence, NASA Administrator Goldin, working with Agency senior leadership, created the Decadal Planning Team of about a dozen senior scientists, engineers, astronauts, and managers from its Headquarters and all its Centers. The activity was led from the start by Dr. James B. Garvin and Ms. Lisa Guerra.
In contrast with numerous earlier – and subsequent – long-range planning teams that NASA chartered, the DPT avoided identifying a specific, overriding destination for human spaceflight (e.g., the Moon, Mars, asteroids, Lagrangian points). Instead, the DPT emphasized (mainly) technological ‘’capabilities’’ that would be required for humans to travel throughout the inner Solar System to achieve multiple goals. The DPT was unique in NASA’s history in advocating the concept that specific destinations were not terminal venues, but rather should be treated primarily as ‘’stepping stones’’ -- sites for limited testing and demonstration before moving on to other locations of greater interest. Such a ‘’go anywhere, anytime’’ philosophy and emphasis on a long-range commitment to enabling technologies remain controversial among many space advocates who instead urge national declarations of long-term human occupation specifically of Mars or the Moon.
In addition, the DPT adopted scientific exploration and new discoveries as the primary justification for NASA and modeled the space agency’s mission on the goals that President Thomas Jefferson established for the Lewis and Clark Expedition almost exactly two centuries earlier. As such, the DPT remains the space agency’s most ambitious strategic planning effort to combine explicitly NASA’s science programs with human spaceflight. This philosophy has remained controversial with both scientists and human spaceflight advocates.
Read more about this topic: Decadal Planning Team
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