Goals and Objectives
The NASA Astrobiology Roadmap provides guidance for research and technology development across several NASA Enterprises: Space Science, Earth Science, and Biological and Physical Research. The Roadmap is formulted in terms of eight Science Goals that outline key domains of investigation that will very likely require perhaps decades of effort to consummate. For each of these goals, Science Objectives outline more specific high priority near-term efforts for the next three to five years. These twenty objectives will be integrated with NASA strategic planning.
Goal 1—Understand habitable planets in the universe.
- Objective 1.1—Develop models of habitable planet formation and evolution.
- Objective 1.2— Improve indirect and direct astronomical observations of extrasolar habitable planets.
Goal 2—Explore for past or present habitable environments, prebiotic chemistry and life that might exist elsewhere in our solar system.
- Objective 2.1—Mars exploration.
- Objective 2.2—Outer Solar System exploration.
Goal 3—Understand how life originates from cosmic and planetary precursors.
- Objective 3.1—Sources of prebiotic materials and catalysts.
- Objective 3.2—Origins of functional biopolymers.
- Objective 3.3—Origins of energy transduction.
- Objective 3.4—Origins and early consequences of cellularity.
Goal 4—Understand the interactions between life on Earth and its planetary and Solar System environment.
- Objective 4.1—Earth's early biosphere.
- Objective 4.2—Foundations of complex life.
- Objective 4.3—Extraterrestrial effects on the biosphere.
Goal 5—Understand how life in general evolves on the molecular, organismal, and ecosystem levels.
- Objective 5.1—Evolution of molecular systems.
- Objective 5.2—Microbe and microbial ecosystem adaptation and evolution.
Goal 6—Understand the principles that govern changes in ecosystems on Earth and shape the future biosphere.
- Objective 6.1—Develop biogeochemical models.
- Objective 6.2—Relate environmental changes to the cycling of elements and to the biota, communities, and ecosystems.
Goal 7—Explore the physical and chemical limits to which life adapts as a guide for searching for life on other worlds.
- Objective 7.1— Explore for life that survives or thrives under the most extreme conditions on Earth.
- Objective 7.2—Characterize and elucidate the biochemical adaptations that define the limits for the individual,
- Objective 7.3—Adaptation of life beyond Earth.
Goal 8—Determine how to recognize signatures of life on other worlds and on early Earth.
- Objective 8.1—Identify biosignatures to be sought in Solar System materials.
- Objective 8.2—Identify biosignatures to be sought in nearby planetary systems