of decadal goals in planetary defense and science. Those surveys emphasized the importance of probes to distant worlds like Uranus and the discovery of habitable worlds besides our own.The BPS division covers the sciences necessary to sustain life in space—issues like how to protect humans from the hostile environment, how to cultivate food, and how to generate power.
“Sustained human exploration beyond low Earth orbit presents science objectives and challenges we haven’t yet completed or in some cases even approached through the era of the International Space Stationcrews will spend more time beyond low Earth orbit, in transit, and while living and working in lunar or Martian stations,” said steering committee co-chair Robert Ferl, assistant vice president of research at the University of Florida, in the same release.