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When NASA Consulted the Public on Asteroids

After NASA slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid, successfully shifting its orbit last September, NASA administrator Bill Nelson stated that the DART mission “showed the world that NASA is serious as a defender of this planet.” But protecting Earth from asteroids has not always been part of the space agency’s portfolio—NASA didn’t establish the Planetary Defense Coordination Office until 2016.

Nearly a decade before the DART mission, NASA launched a pioneering approach to public engagement that delivered a revelation about how much taxpayers cared about the issue. Mahmud Farooque and Jason L. Kessler describe how NASA worked with a team of social scientists to bring citizens together to discuss how the agency might approach some technical decisions involving asteroids. According to Lindley Johnson, who is now NASA’s planetary defense officer, “I think it was one of the first times that we directly saw the opinion of the public about planetary defense—and how important they thought it was for NASA to be doing it.”

THE ONGOING TRANSFORMATION

Collaborations on Ice
On the latest episode of our podcast, JD Talasek, Cy Keener, and Ignatius Rigor discuss how creative practices can contribute to scientific research and communication.

EDITOR’S JOURNAL

The Obligations of Knowledge
New knowledge gives society new moral responsibilities, writes Lisa Margonelli. Bringing researchers, citizens, and policymakers together could help fulfill those obligations.

Plus: “Treatment that is unavailable to patients in need has no value at all”: Geeta Jotwani, Varsha Dalal, and Charles Stephen Mgone offer suggestions for making gene therapy accessible to patients in low- and middle-income countries.

WHAT WE’RE READING

After joining Issues in October, I started reading The Fifth Risk by journalist Michael Lewis, hoping to get a better sense of science within government bureaucracies. Written in 2018 during the Trump administration, this very readable book is a de facto tutorial in government agencies advancing science to improve lives. For instance, days-in-advance weather predictions, inconceivable just decades ago, are taken for granted today—a product of massive data collection and analysis within the Department of Commerce’s National Weather Service. Lewis details similar efforts—in nuclear safety, childhood nutrition, and food security—across the Departments of Energy, Commerce, and Agriculture. Government acronyms continue to befuddle me, but I stand amazed at the dedication of federal employees.

—Monya Baker, Senior Editor

IN-PERSON AND VIRTUAL EVENT: JANUARY 23, 3:00–5:00 PM ET

Recent legislation dramatically increases public funding for research and development, creates new institutions and linkages, and explicitly calls on science to address the nation’s most vexing policy challenges. The Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes is hosting a discussion on January 23 at 3:00 PM ET about the challenges and opportunities presented by these investments in the US science and innovation enterprise, and how new policy tools for responsible and anticipatory governance could lead to a more inclusive, robust, and globally competitive innovation ecosystem.

THE WINTER 2023 ISSUE

The Winter 2023 edition of Issues explores the ethics of patient care during the golden age of neuroscience; how a metaphor borrowed from consumer electronics helped reinvigorate the electric vehicle industry; fixing academia’s approach to sexual harassment; and much, much more.

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Header video of the Didymos system, which includes the Dimorphos asteroid that was impacted by NASA’s DART mission, by Magdalena Ridge Observatory/NM Tech.

Issues in Science and Technology is a publication of Arizona State University and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.