Workshop Goals & Objectives

Goal

The Astrobiology Roadmap Workshop will be held July 20-22, 1998 at NASA Ames Research Center. The goal of the Workshop is to develop a research and development plan for the nascent field of Astrobiology for the 2000-2020 time frame, with focus on the first ten years.

Objectives

The Workshop will define top-level science goals and objectives and identify the mission and technology requirements to achieve these goals. These requirements will be mapped onto the set of mission and technology development programs that are included in the relevant NASA strategic plans and identify areas where new developments are needed to meet astrobiology goals. Astrobiology is an interdisciplinary and multiorganizational venture that requires collaborative partnerships for implementation. The Workshop will identify partnership opportunities and the organizational interfaces needed to implement the program.

Precursor Studies

The foundational astrobiology science goals and questions were identified in the first Astrobiology Workshop in September 1996 and will be reevaluated in this Astrobiology Roadmap Workshop.

The Astrobiology precursor workshops held in 1998 surveyed the realm of mission and technology possibilities to capture what could be done to address Astrobiology goals.

The Astrobiology Roadmap will evaluate those possibilities against newly refined science requirements and priorities to determine what should be done.

The end product will be the recommended program for science, technologies, and mission development in Astrobiology over the next decade.