Research and Analysis

1.	The Research and Analysis programs within NASA are the foundation of the entire US Solar System exploration program. Any cut to these programs is totally unacceptable if we are to maintain a viable and vigourous exploration program (i.e. The Vision) for the forseeable future. NASA and the US government risks losing a great deal with these types of cuts and sends the wrong message to future scientists wanting to make planetary exploration their career. The US is recognized as the leader in space exploration, but this advantage will not last if attitudes toward basic research and analysis continue within our government. There are other organizations and countries (e.g. China) banging at the door who would be only too happy to fill the void the US left behind. And frankly that is not a situation that I would want future generations to face.
2.	It is extremely important that funding be stable. Jerking programs around, canceling them on short notice, etc is just bad policy. Science is the primary reason for launching unmanned planetary missions (granted, the same can't be said for manned missions). Hence, keeping science funded at a stable level is MORE important than funding missions. Obviously both need to be done for the long-term health of the field, but if one of the two needs to be cut/downsized/reduced in frequency, it should be missions rather than basic science research that is downsized.
3.	It really does not make sense to fund 'missions' without the research to back them. The ideas that fuel the missions originate in ideas developed because of well-supported R&A programs.
4.	I am most concerned about the loss of analysis funding (NASA support for science programs, graduate student support, etc) than the reduction in space missions, which might better be served (and cheapar) through private launch facilities in the future.
5.	R&A is the heart and soul of planetary science research. The recent cutbacks threaten to drive out productive scientists and discourage new researchers from entering the field. I do not have strong feelings about the relative merits of small, medium and large missions, but I strongly believe that R&A must not suffer to pay for missions (including the New Vision).
6.	While larger missions get the most notice, it is only via a healthy R&A program that we get scientific results from these missions. Reasonable and continuous funding of the R&A program is necessary to encourage young scientists and allow them to develop their careers. These scientists are the ones who generate the Discovery, New Frontier, and Flagship mission proposals that NASA selects from.
7.	NASA would be severely compromising its ability to conduct science from spacecraft if it minimizes R&A programs.
8.	Steady R&A funding is critical for maintaining a strong scientific base to support space missions. We cannot decimate our ranks of scientists and expect to successfully pursue missions in the future.
9.	Cutting R&A funding is short-sighted because it will force senior scientisits with soft-money positions to leave planetary and space science and will discourage talented young people from entering the field.
10.	The larger missions, Flagship and New Frontiers, are valuable only insofar as there is a community ready to receive and to interpret the results of exploration, to turn it into new human knowledge. My priorities thus were set according to the nurturing of an active, healthy community. At the extreme, the situation can be thought of as this: there can be a healthy and productive planetary exploration community with no Flagship missions, but there would be no planetary exploration if there were a Flagship mission with no community prepared to understand the mission's results.
11.	1. The R&A program provides the new ideas that lead to missions. Making them take the brunt of the cuts is essentially eating our seed corn. 2. I believe that smaller PI based missions provide more science per dollar than the flagship missions. However we need a way to quantify this (for instance publications per dollar or a combination of publications and citations per dollar).
12.	Questions 4 and 5 are worded in an overly restrictive way. My actual position lies somewhere between the two positions expressed in those two statements. Stability of R&A is critical, and appropriate funding of data analysis of major missions is also critical to reap the appropriate returns from all the investment in the missions that produce the data.
13.	The R&A budget basically determines how large the planetary science community is. If the current budget shortage is temporary, we MUST keep the R&A budget at current levels in order to keep individuals in the field. If the budget and, therefore, the community, need to shrink long term, then soome cutting of the R&A budget is appropriate, but some care should be taken to ensure that the cuts do not impact young members of the field more strongly than older members or the field will shink dramatically in about a decade when the older members retire.
14.	R&A must be funded as a top priority. Missions are largely useless if we don't have the knowledge-base and analysis capabilties provided by fundamental R&A.
15.	Without an active R&A program, the scientific purpose of missions is largely unattainable.
16.	Flagship missions are important as this is a unique capability that only NASA can provide (monetarily and technologically), and the return in both science and public interest is enormous. That said, nothing is more important than on-going research & analysis, the 'bread and butter' so to speak. This funding is critical to research and educational institutes all over the USA. Flagship missions do include R&A funding it is important to note, however, a lot of good science (and education) is done that is not directly related to these missions. Smaller missions such as the Discovery missions are also very important and while not always having the same level of general interest, do usually result in a very high science-to-cost ratio.
17.	core programs in science need to be protected and defended from special interests based on a strict interpretation of NASA mission statements and a recognition that data interpretation/understanding is even more important that collecting the data in the first place.
18.	R&A levels are presently too low to fully analyze available data. Taking money away from these programs endangers the entire Solar System exploration effort, since under-utilization of current data undermines the justification for future missions.
19.	Missions are of little use if nobody looks at the data in anything more than a superficial manner. As for mission priorities, distributed networks are more stable, flexible, and efficient (in the long run) than centralized networks. Moral: With very few exceptions, we should be spreading the money out into many smaller pots rather than one or two large ones.
20.	It's quite mad to stint on researach and analysis for the sake of space missions. The success of a mission is measured in what it teaches us about the environment it is designed to study, not about whether a space probe has gone into orbit. There is far too much orphaned data, which is infinitely cheaper to analyze than it is to launch another mission. For instance, most optical (UV) data from Pioneer Venus has not been studied, because there are no funds available from NASA. Meanwhile, the Europeans have put Pioneer Venus into orbit, and some of its measurements would now be redundant if only the R&A funds to analyze the Pioneer Venus data had been forthcoming. In my opinion, manned missions to Mars are senseless, and to cut back on the means to understand what we can readily investigate is amazingly shortsighted.
21.	Although many NASA R&A programs may seem unrelated to the current NASA vision for space exploration, which focuses primarily on human spaceflight to the moon and eventually to Mars, all space research informs human space exploration to some extent. For example, comparative geology across the solar system will help us understand lunar landing site geology, and asteroid collisional dynamics will be important when we decide humans will land on an asteroid. To move these important R&A programs away from NASA will cause a great disconnect that will lead to redundancy, inefficiency, and a technological lagging behind that will cause the US to be outstripped by other countries.
22.	There has to be continuity of basic research or we will not be prepared for future missions. Worse we will lose the best people from the programs as they will go elsewhere were funding is more stable.
23.	If it is worth the expense of collecting the data (which it is!), than it is well worth the expense of spending the funds required to learn what the data have to tell us. The R&A funds, which total a small fraction of the mission(s) cost, are really where the value from the missions is derived.
24.	NASA has, in the past, supported most of the basic research done in the US in planetary sciences. The significant cutbacks that are being considered will emasculate our capabilities and will allow other countries to take the lead in planetary science research. These cutbacks will discourage new students from entering the field while encouraging current scientists to leave for other countries. The cuts will have a devastating long term effect.
25.	1) While a mix of small, medium, and large missions is essential to address the needs of the planetary science community, we may have picked most of the low-hanging fruit, eroding the value of Discovery missions. 2) The justification for the R&A program is eroding in part because NASA does not currently have a planetary 'program'. All that we have is a largely random series of competitively selected missions. If we had a true planetary program, with a specific series of milestones and a schedule, it would be easier to justify and prioritize the R&A programs.
26.	Without strong R&A programs, much of the potential science from missions is lost.
27.	Research and Analysis funding in all areas is already tight, and the proposed cuts will have a devastating and lasting impact on our research infrastructure for a long time to come. It takes a couple of decades to fully train a new scientist. Cutting funds now will undermine our ability to do delayed missions. Cutting astrobiology disproportionately because the Mars missions are delayed is not a logical rationale. We need to maintain our technological expertise.
28.	The Discovery and New Frontier type of lines are suitable mainly for flyby type of surveys of the inner and outer solar system. These surveys have now been accomplished. The need now is for a detailed look at the solar system objects which requires lengthy observations from spacecraft orbiting the planetary object of interest. Unfortunately such detailed studies can only be carried out by expensive and often large flagship type missions. Research and Analysis programs should always have the highest priority in funding because science data collected and archived at great expense is useless untill scientists can analyze it and make sense out of it.
29.	There will always be new frontiers and new data will always be appealing, but the real advances come from careful thought and analysis of existing data. This is the hard (and creative!) work that sets science aside from many other endeavors. This approach is enbodied in the basic R&A programs which are the truly critical aspct of the entire NASA effort. NASA without R&A is simply a welfare program. If we that is what scieitists and policy makers want NASA to be, then they should call it that--a welfare and jobs program. If NASA is a science program, then R&A must play a centralized role throughout.
30.	Laboratory data are critical to interpret and maximise the return from the data obtained in space missions and improve our understanding of the cosmos.
31.	Continuity in our R&A programs is essential in order to guarantee qualified planetary science researchers continue in the field. The people are our most important resource and if lost, will take years or decades to replace.
32.	All missions, whatever their scope, will have less impact and less interest if R&A is depleted to the point where planetary scientists and their students are forced to leave the field. It is especially tragic that the space station and shuttle receive an inordinate share of the total NASA budget, when the latter is funded just to complete the former, whose mission and usefulness have never been defined. The station will be completed only to be abandoned, apparently to keep money flowing to particular congressional districts.
33.	More emphasis should be placed on data analysis from past missions, even at the expense of some new missions.
34.	Funding for R&A is the backbone of the community; so many of us rely on it for support and the support of students/postdocs. Missions do provide support, but that support is limited in time, and the onus of continued support always falls back on the R&A program. We need to keep appropriate funding in the R&A programs, not only for background for future missions and mission analysis, but also to allow the community to thrive so that both the scientists involved now, and those who will join in the future do not leave due to lack of opportunities.
35.	With such a wealth of new planetary data already on the ground and much more on the way, R&A should be increased at the expense of new missions. Young scientists should be encouraged and enticed to become involved in planetary data analysis.
36.	R & A, and especially the multi-disciplinary astrobiology research programs, are the core of the future of space science. We must continue strong, undiminished support to R & A to help assure the next generation of researchers are trained and ready.
37.	NASA needs to focus on maintaining world leadership in science and engineering. Large cuts to fundamental research programs primarily affect young researchers in grad school and postdoc positions. This strategy will result in a severe decline in the number of people entering into space science research in the near future.
38.	Without a strong and stable R&A program, sending Flagship missions to other worlds become no more than a proof of techology experiment. Without timely and accurate analysis of the mass amounts of data that we currently have, especially from Mars, we will allocate funds and missions based on old knowledge, thus wasting limited resources. There are literally thousands of new discoveries buried in the data we have already collected and will collect with the spacecraft we already have in operation. We do not have the necessary number of scientists to analyze all of that data. And lastly, the United States needs to grow more scientists. The only way to encourage more students to choose science, espeically the space and planetary sciences, is to maintain a steady funding of research. With this in mind, limited funds should go to data analysis and maintaining the spacecraft we already have in operation. Funds for future spacecraft should be focused towards smaller, more frequent opportunities, to ensure the largest involvement of both the public and the science community.
39.	I was part of the Apollo program as a young graduate student and have always believed to be optimized missions must have science input from R & A as they progress or else they tend to become engineering prowess demonstrators. I also remember those were days when we were told we can have 'guns and butter'. Turned out not to be true then and probably isn't true now:^(
40.	What is the point of sending missions to the Solar System, whether manned or unmanned, if no funds are available to study the returned data? More support should be given to the hard work that drives the real discoveries rather than to flashy newsworthy missions (science is also newsworthy!).
41.	I think that Flagship missions are the least important to fund in times of budget crisis; much more actual scientific knowledge is accumulated when smaller missions are backed up by the R&A program.
42.	All the data I have ever seen suggests that 'bang for (research) buck' is greatest in the smaller-grant, R&D competitive funding arena - programs such as Astrobiology - rather than large, bureaucratic consortia tied in to multi-year, large projects. Such funding offers unique opportunities for bright ideas and visionary individuals to pursue the boundaries of our knowledge in the most creative and least costly ways. It builds bridges into other areas of research science, and minimizes any perceptions of elitism or oligarchy surrounding NASA. As a participant of the astrobiology program, I am devastated that this type of funding is currently slated to suffer so much, and I would implore the NASA leadership to reexamine this decision. A small fraction of a flagship project budget could fund a grant cycle for years.
43.	It is incredibly short-sighted to explore only for the sake of exploration without sustaining vigorous and diverse R&A programs.
44.	Astrobiology programs should be better supported
45.	Missions are an intefral to furthering our understadning of new frontiers. However, R and A is the core of science and should be priritized at the expense of, say, a large-scale missions every decade or two. I would also think that a healthy budget of smaller scale missions should be protected. Bottom line, if there is the money, fund the large scale mission. Otherwise, focus on the meat of our science (R and A, along with the occassional small mission.
46.	I didn't feel I could adequately answer questions 4 and 5 without knowing just what missions would be skipped or added. In a more general sense, everything is important but the fiscal reality is that funding in limited and we have to set priorities. I cannot imagine reducing science funding in favor of missions in this very early stage of planetary exploration. It seems foolhardy. The potential benefit of expensive missions may be minimized without adequate science preparation and analysis. With limited funding, we should be doing just the opposite: Trying to maximize our returns from the missions we do support by having extensive and comprehensive preparation and scientific analysis ahead of time.
47.	Steady R&A funding is crucial for sustainment of new frontiers in academic research. Drastic changes in R&A funding availability disproportionately hurts young scientists early in their careers who already have a difficult time competing for federal dollars with more established colleagues. It also hurts graduate and undergraduate research opportunities at universities. While missions are important and make significant discoveries, it impacts only a small community of scientists (those in planetary science) whereas the same amount of funds can have large impacts on a much larger communities of researchers.
48.	Optimal interpretation of any mission-based results in solar system exploration requires stable core R&A programs that generate technical expertise and sustain a knowledgable, vigorous, sceptical, involved and committed scientific community.
49.	R and A programs are essential to understanding and planning NASA missions, and need to be at least level funded.
50.	While 'flaship missions' are essential, research and analysis are at the very core of space exploration and should be supported as such.
51.	Research and Analysis funding needs to be more stable, the damage is done not by the absolute amounts, but by sudden changes. Clearly sudden decreases are particularly damaging. Part of the damage is perception by people considering the field that it is too unstable as a career. Major new initiatives, particularly new direction for research, need to be funded as such, and not through cannibalization of existing effort. If there is no funding, switching priority needs to be gradual
52.	If the technology is not developed, the additional missions are just more of the same and do not contribute to new science. Technology is the seed corn for science and the budget is the smallest.
53.	Investing in R&A, which typically funds young scientists should be the highest priority. No mission costs can justify cutting the future of astronomy.
54.	Like most funded activities, this is a zero-sum game. We would like to see more balance between priorities and goals. Data mining and laboratory science are still the most efficient contributors to knowledge in planetary science and to the prudent selection of missions.
55.	Just a small suggestion....children in our schools are brighter than we may think. THEY have a pretty good handle on some things, and I think virtually 100% of the children in America think it devastating that the funding for astrobiology is being cut. They are our replacements in the not-too-distant future. I'd hate to disappoint them.
56.	NASA's rationale on cutting R&A is severely flawed. Cutting R&A at any level with the premise that we don't need as much research because we have fewer missions scheduled is akin to saying we don't need to study anything outside of our solar system ever because we don't have the technology to go there. R&A is the foundation of our understanding of the results coming from spacecraft missions and should always be made top priority.
57.	R&A programs should occupies a reasonable portion of the science budget that can remain steady with time because R&A should be considered the core to maintain science work force. Space missions are certainly valuable but they also have higher risks and budgetary challenges, which should not be averted or overcome by cutting down science work force.
58.	A strong R&A program provides the basic scientific backbone for all mission science. Whatever the type of mission, the scientific foundation upon which it is based and the long-term analysis and evaluation of the results will depend on R&A.
59.	R&A is the lifeblood of space science. It makes little sense to spend billions on a mission but not spend a few million on R&A to extract maximum knowledge from the data gathered. Laboratory measurements and simulations in support of planetary missions lag decades behind. Fundamental measurements, such as rheological properties or indices of refraction, do not exist for a majority of compounds expected to occur on planetary bodies. New understanding continues to arise from the Viking and Voyager missions as scientists gradually and painstakingly raise the level of laboratory and theoretical understanding needed to analyze the spcecraft data. This should not have to wait decades after a mission is flown.
60.	Data analysis research such as the Astrobiology programs provide the scientific impetus for space exploration. Consequently, the relatively small cost of such programs should receive top priority, such that when viable mission targets have been identified with high certainty, then and only then, should high-cost high-risk discovery missions be launched, especially if they are carrying human payloads. Nowadays the political and sociological benefits for 'going just because you can go' are too small to warrant putting such missions above the guaranteed payoff of basic research.
61.	Basic science research is the key to all other NASA missions. Therefore, funds to basic science research, such as Astrobiology, should be increased, instead of reduced.
62.	They should try and do their best to promote the benefits of R&A to the general public. That's the best way to build congressional support--for the constituents to be directly affected.
63.	Without the defining science, enabling technologies and applied instrumentation to make scientific measurements, exploration exists without the foundation that invests it with enough value tomerit public funding.
64.	Clearly, continued ample support for R&A programs is the most desirable format given the vast amount of data already in need of analysis. New missions are wonderful within the framework of a system in which R&A funding is maintained. It is never in the interest of any party to sacrifice the backbone of the community in order to fund new missions and especially directives (which are clearly politically driven) which will acquire volumes of new data in a community lacking the resources to analyze them. The end result of such an endeavor will only contribute to the already rapid decline of the United States as leaders in the global scientific community.
65.	The bulk of the science done with NASA funding and essentially all of the training of the next generation of scientists are done with R&A and 'small mission' money. Focusing on the expensive missions will lead to the further decline of US space science research while enriching the corporations involved in the big-money missions.
66.	We need now more than ever a strong R&D to support the analysis of the tetrabytes (probably more) of planetary data returned by all the missions. If cannot obtain this, then those missions will be a giant waste. Cutting R&D is killing not only science, but people who are supported missions (and by the way also thinking the rationale to make those missions happen). R&D should be restore and even augmented to support this community.
67.	We need to first understand the data which we have before we can design a flagship mission. Otherwise its capabilities may not be optimized for the planet it is going to explore.
68.	We should try to preserve the R&A program at all costs, otherwise we eat our seed corn. The mix of various size (cost) missions is not as absolute, but should be biassed to more of the smaller missions. Nevertheless, the community should be able to over-ride this priority.
69.	Without R&A programs there is no science or reason to spend money on flight missions for the purpose of exploration. It's analogous to driving with your eys closed or taking a shower while wearing a raincoat.
70.	US Solar System exploration should not be subject to budget constriction caused by two human vehicle programs; the shuttle and the new vehicle. At no time in the past has NASA run simultaneous programs. If the executive branch has directed this change in NASA planning, then the budget should by increased to reflect the expenses. If human exploration is a sincere mission, then the R & A is imperative.
71.	Basic funding of Research and analysis is critical to the competitive development of Space Sciences in the US and must not be sacrificed to fund Flagship missions. It is imperative that student training in space science at all levels be contiuous and dependable if we are going to kept a steady stream of experts flowing into the system over the next 20 years and allow the US to remain at the front of Space Sciences and the industries fed by this field.
72.	Exploration without support of the scientists doing the research to first design the mission and later make useful conclusions from the data is without point. Reducing funding for R & A and the scientists who depend on this funding means that, in the future, such exploration will not even be possible, let alone useful.
73.	It is critical to maintain R&A funding, both for the health and future of the field (it is young scientists who are most affected by funding cuts) and for analysis of data from missions. The goal should be to acquire and analyze diverse, high-quality data efficiently. Research funding is critical to this--scientific and technological goals are best served with a steady rate of missions well-funded for research and analysis, not by aggressively pursuing launches at the expense of study. Missions are useless unless the data can be examined and used by the research community, and this makes R&A funding the most important link in the chain.
74.	I entered graduate school with an interest in Astrobiology, with the understanding that Astrobiology was the hot new field of Astronomy and Planetary Science. By understanding extreme life on Earth and the possibility for life on other planets, we were pushing technology limits and developing more sophisticated instruments, whose development and techniques could be applied to all facets of life. Now I am a newly-hired tenure-track faculty who faces the possibility that her research funding for Astrobiology will be cut, at the start of her career. R&A programs, including Astrobiology, affect people with diverse interests - people who grew up wanting to work for NASA. We were drawn to science because of Apollo, the Voyager spacecraft images, and the prospect of life on Mars. Few of us will *ever* be astronauts or support human spaceflight. Most of us will achieve our dream of 'working' for NASA by being funded for our science research by NASA and making our own contributions to the field right here on Earth.
75.	R & A funding is already small fraction of the bdudget. Cutting R & A funding will do little to help messions, but will hurt the scientific community badly.
76.	Missions without a sound scientific rationale backed by basic research and accompanied by ample funds for data analyses are not worth sending.
77.	Without the research done by the science programs the flights will eventually accelerate in cost. There would be no new data on how to do missions without new research for fuel and experimentation. It's like flying blind without any current and future information.
78.	I believe that space exploration (manned, unmmanned) needs basic astrobiology, astromedical and astrophysical research in order to be able e.g. to define what to look at when exploring new planets, moons etc... forsee unexpected (because not occurring on the Earth) health concerns for astronauts develop environmentally safe ways of exploring new world In general, Science also needs this type of basic research because it addresses fundamental issues in an unorthodox manner
79.	The proposed $ amounts that would be removed in the R&A programs for FY2006-07 would have a far reaching negative impact on scientific advances/discoveries for many years to come. Yet the same $ amount taken away from the funding of large, flagship missions would have, in comparison, very little effect.
80.	In the face of shrinking budgets, maintaining researchers, especially young researchers, is critical. However, NASA must fly some missions so Discovery and Scout missions are important. I would weight medium and large missions equally lowly. While I realize this sacrifices the outer solar system, the cost in people of doing these missions is too high in today's budgets.
81.	I think it is critical to keep the high quality scientists moving through our system. This happens with ground-based observing, airborne work, and science-intensive programs that come along quickly enough to have people see a whole program. Flagship programs take so long, a grad student will only see a piece of a program. We are already losing higher education slots to foreign students, and now we are not even allowing them to come into the country as we used to. We NEED to emphasize math and science in our educational program, or we will lose our technical advantage. What good will it be if we have a large business base with mechanical engineers, if we have no scientists to move the frontiers back?
82.	As an astrobiologist, I consider the evolutionary and exobiology program at NASA to be the premier basic science funding program in the US. It is better than any NSF or NIH group that I have been associated with. Bringing together top biologists, astrophysicists, biochemists etc.. is a brilliant way of fostering cross-talk and inspiring the spirit of discovery in future scientists. I cannot imagine NASA without this vital component. NASA must somehow seek its own research voice and philosophy and not be a pawn of politicians. NASA, space discovery, and understanding life orgins are some of the most important and exciting things that happen in science and we must keep the optimism and wonder alive to guide future generations in this country.
83.	Funding for astrobiology programs should be restored. This is one of the 'flagship' interdisciplinary programs funded by the US government.
84.	For Solar System exploration to go forward, it is important that we have a balanced program of R&A, and small, medium and flagship missions. If we lose even one of these components, it will greatly hurt the field. Maintaining R&A, at relatively little cost, is a high priority, as it forms the basis for the conception and development of new exploration missions, and the scientific infrastructure with turns spacecraft measurements into actual scientific knowledge. It is also the principal means by which we bring young scientists into the field. However, at the other end of the spectrum, flagship missions allow us to explore our planetary system 'as only NASA can' and these crucial missions should not be sacrificed to fund smaller missions. However, I do not believe that R&A and flagship missions are in competition here, given the relatively small amount of money required for R&A. The real competition is between maintaining a balanced program of R&A, and small, medium and flagship missions for robotic exploration of the solar system vs funding a manned exploration initiative. The latter represents the most expensive, least efficient method of solar system exploration, and it should not be funded at an accelerated pace, at the expense of R&A and robotic exploration.
85.	Astrobiology and Education should be a priority.
86.	It is most significant to include funding of ground based research efforts (already called for in the AAS/DPS Decadal Survey published in the 2003 New Frontiers in the Solar System, Solar System Exploration Survey, Space Studies Board and the National Research Council) which are tied effectively to a large base student population for future development of our intellectual resources. Large scale Space Missions do not do this.
87.	R&A should always be considered the backbone of NASA. It sets the stage for exploration, asks the questions to be addressed in missions and helps untangle the data once returned. Human exploration is very sexy and exciting, but it should never come before R&A, b/c who will analyze the data once returned and who will ask the questions to be answered by the mission? I would favor a scrapping of the current human exploration system in favor for a more up-to-date vehicle and clear goals. But human exploration and R&A should have a hard boundary between their moneys and one shouldn't be funded at the other's expense.
88.	Understanding our origins and our place in the Universe, presumably one of the motivations for human space flight, receives extremely strong support and guidance from basic R&A. Supporting R&A is therefore important both for the long-term meaning that we derive from space flight, and for our ability to communicate the significance of these efforts to the general public.
89.	As the Director of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology, an International Associate of the NAI, I strongly consider that without a stable investment in R&A much of the value of missions could be lost. We in Australia are enthusiastic supporters of and participants in the NASA R&A program. Malcolm Walter
90.	R&A programs will play an increasing role over the next decades to assist and stabilize the information equity of all missions, including Moon/Mars initiative programs. Without a strong core of space science, we will lack the concepts and working knowledge necessary to sustain long-term space habitation efforts (namely, Lunar and Martian bases), and we will lack the working knowledge that will allow us to colonize Mars (a fantastic investment in terms of science gained vs. resources expended). Any cut to R&A is a disproportionately large reduction in the ability to achieve the Moon/Mars initiative's long term goals of solar system habitation and human exploration.
91.	Please restore funding for Astrobiology.
92.	R & A is needed to justify, direct, and maximize the scientific and economic advance of all other missions. Inadequate R & A will lead to mistakes and wasteful missions, such that we will pay a hefty price later to make up for it. R & A should be the cornerstone of NASA's Solar System Exploration.
93.	Steady rational funding of the basic R&D enterprise including astrobiology is the only way to maintain the science expertise and to build on our current heritage. Without maintenance of this platform good science will leave NASA and will never return.
94.	NASA should make funding young scientists a priority so that the educational pipeline is not broken, and scientists will be available in the future to analyze the data from new missions.
95.	R&A should be shielded from mission cuts -- it is vital to developing the human infrastructure that is a prerequisite for any successful scientific mission.
96.	When we have so few eggs, I hesitate to put most of them in one big basket. Also, the big missions would be a boon to one area of planetary science, but are not relevant to a big part of the community. By focusing on small missions and R&A, we are more likely to keep many fields within planetary science vibrant.
97.	All core R&A programs are the heart and sole of planetary science, even though NASA seems to want to move on to the 'next' mission once something is successfully launched or landed. Is the priority the hardware we launch, or is it the knowledge we gain from that hardware? I vigorously defend that the knowledge gained should be the primary objective of NASA science efforts.
98.	The importance of a robust R&A cannot be overstated. It provides the scientific returns for which all these millions of dollars were spent to fly the spacecraft in the first place. It helps attract new and bright people in the physical sciences, captures the imagination of the taxpaying public and finally leads to many fundamental discoveries, several of them on technology. On the other hand, a stable line of Discovery and Explorer class missions is the best way to keep our existing edge on space technology and train new scientists and engineers in all aspects of space research. The specific science focus of such missions provides also the best science for the money.
99.	I want to underline that the R&A program is in my view essential to further the sciences based on the outcome of Discovery or other missions. This includes especially more theoretical research, which is often not funded along with a mission. One of the research priorities should be Our Solar System in the context of general planetary system formation. Is it special and if yes, in what respects. Is the formation of life an 'inevitable' process or very rare? Did life originate on Earth or was it brought in by comets/meteorites?
100.	Given that we still do not understand so many fundamental questions in solar system and planetary science, the relatively low cost of R&A programs should not be negatively affected by mission activity. Many missions have produced wealth of data that have barely been analyzed, due to the (engineering-driven) excitement about missions and ever new missions. Though NASA is a 'can-do' agency, the ultimate goal must be to understand.
101.	We should not forget that all of the highly publicized mission successes have been based on years of ground research both before and after the mission to gain knowledge essential to the success of space flight missions. Decreasing ground research in astrobiology and planetary sciences will dramatically decrease our knowledge base for determining appropriate questions to address with space flight missions and decrease the amount of useful information gathered on future missions. Intense studies of the only available pool of life forms here on Earth will give us insights into the origin and complex evolution of life that helps us understand the possibilities for what kind of life may be present in the solar system and where to go and look for it. Space flight missions are merely the tip of the pyramid supported by a large base of ground research which must be supported and sustained if the space fight missions are to have any value.
102.	The important point to make here is that NASA has the obligation of sustaining the base of research science in our country, especially in support of our science and engineering education mission. Mission Science includes training of scientists for research and analysis. R&A is something that can not be outsourced!
103.	It would be pretty stupid to sacrifice basic research in favor of missions. The research is critical to making the missions scientifically fruitful. The result of cutting science too much would be missions that don't return much new knowledge and understanding. This really defeats the purpose of going, unless the purpose is simply to boost the American ego by planting the flag on the moon and Mars.
104.	The reduction in R&A is a terrible price to pay in order to put a 'Man on Mars'. I have seen no credible reasons for scuttling working programs with proven benefits to fund a program that has very little scientific value.
105.	A stable committment to R&D and the training of the next generation of scientists is critical for all NASA objectives, and should take precedence over all other programs.
106.	It is essential to maintain the research and analysis program without cutbacks. This program provides the greatest scientific return per dollar spent and supports the preservation of the space science research community and the training of new students. Without this program, the vitality of the space science community will be sapped.
107.	Astrobiology has been at the heart of nearly all solar system missions and the exploration for life elsewhere is a major focus of public support. NASA originated the Astrobiology Program in response to its broad public appeal and the promise of this new interdisciplinary science to answer fundamental questions. To undermine the progress made by unbalanced cuts to R&A funding and instrumentation development in Astrobiology will severely hamper future progress in this area by driving away the whole new generation of cross-trained, interdisciplinary scientists that NASA set out to engage in future missions when these programs were developed ten years ago. This is bad for NASA, bad for science and bad for the Nation.
108.	R & A is critical, but in order for NASA to justify the expense, it must be directed at NASA-related things. That is Astrobiology should not be a program where science that could as easily be supported at NSF, DOE, or other places gets done. It loses credibility. If it does in fact maximize knowledge useful for missions, then my answer to #2 changes. The way the AB program is run now, it does not seem to do so.
109.	Explanation of my answer to (1): I would have given R&A the highest priority, except that the examples given here do not include the highest-priority R&A programs in my opinion.
110.	R and A and small missions need to be the priority--as the others are propdy osed then cut then changed etc. We need steady-state incremental progress over long periods.
111.	A strong R&A program is completely consistent with President Bush's initiative and it could be counterproductive and at cross-purposes with the administration's goals to cut it. Furthermore, it is not in the best ineterst of NASA to cut the R&A programs, as these are the pipelines to the future workforce and leadership of NASA.
112.	Science and university research must be preserved above all. If lost, it cannot be recovered.
113.	We have a huge backlog of unexploited data from previous missions. This needs to be reduced by funding R&A. Flagship missions have to be kept because there are some questions that cannot be addressed by small focused missions with fewer instruments. There also needs to be more funding for instrument development--flying more advanced missions without flying state-of-the art is a waste of resources.
114.	we need money for R&A programs, bc if we do not understand what we are getting from missions then there is no point to doing missions
115.	Without R&A the other programs are pointless - why spend billions of $ on an experiment and then not look at the results. That said, it may be possible to outsource the R&A. Hove corporations pay to have the rights to the data stream, or even proprietary with rules for availability. Just a thought.
116.	Basic space science research is critical to our understanding of the science behind most of these missions. Without this support, the missions are not productive.
117.	R&A programs are crucial for keeping our nation on the leading edge of science and technology. This is an increasingly competitive world, and we cannot afford to throw away our future technological and scientific competitiveness by reducing investment in R&A programs; in fact, R&A funding must increase in a persistant manner.
118.	NASA is a crown jewel in America's reputation for science and exploration, and one of the key inspirations for young American students entering the sciences. Reliable support for both younger and older basic researchers is key to the future of NASA's planetary exploration mission, and to American scientific preeminence in general. Recent cuts in NASA's basic research budgets are devastating career paths for young post-docs, and cutting the funding for senior researchers who help the younger scientists get started. And, they are wasting data from expensive missions, in the sense that there now is inadequate support to analyze the spacecraft results, not only in terms of other planets, but in terms of now-crucial studies of Earth's climate changes and climate history.
119.	Planetary science is all about data, and data is mostly about missions. However! We now have an enormous backlog of data from past missions that has not been adequately analyzed, mainly because of our one-layer deep R&A base. For instance, nearly 20 years after Voyager Saturn, new discoveries were still being mined from data that had never been looked at. Cassini and the new wave of Mars missions are orders of magnitude more data-rich than Voyager. It makes sense to maintain and preserve our very limited R&A base so that when a more insightful administration and NASA leadership comes back to power, we can respond. The R&A program could be expanded by adding several more DAP programs, focussing on Cassini, Galileo, Mars, Deep Impact... etc.. data. HST has a monster data analysis program enbedded in it - yet none of the major groundbased observatories do, even the ones nominally funded in part by NASA. Many people look at flagship missions as lifeboats to float large fractions of the community, but this is a fallacy. Look at Cassini for instance. Small, overworked science teams with little time to do science, and a paltry Data Analysis program that will barely scratch the surface. NASA has traditionally shown no interest in supporting data analysis once the hardware is built and flown, preferring instead to build more hardware. Thus we will always get more bang for the buck from smaller missions than flagship missions. Flagship missions are dinosaurs in this environment. We must be like small, nimble mammals to survive. R&A stability is far more important to planetary science than to its larger parent astronomy in general, where a ten-times-larger tenured and teaching academic community exists to buffer supply and provide specialists in every conceivable niche. Planetary science is a smaller, more specialized AND at the same time more interdisciplinary community where experience really does count. Moreover, a larger percentage of this small community is on soft money (I think studies have proven this). Finally, planetary science is about diversity. You cannot understand the solar system by studying only the moon. Or by studying only Jupiter. Or only Mars. You need to look at the whole package because it is all connected. In a world where a single object is selected for emphasis - especially when this is done for political, rather than scientific, reasons -it becomes more important than ever to preserve a broadly based R&A program *without restrictions on what is or is not appropriate to study*.
120.	NASA historically has been an engineering organization, and even the funding for mission-related science reflects that. It sure would be nice if the people who fund the technology would also fund at a more realistic level the people who *apply* that technology (i.e., scientists). All of those wonderful spacecraft are supplying us with stunningly exquisite data, but if we're not going to study that information at anywhere near the level that it deserves, then why bother collecting it in the first place? I've seen some pretty detailed cost breakdowns for the hardware related to missions -- design, development, and construction -- and it would seem to me that even a 100% increase in science funding for those missions wouldn't even be noticed except on a *very* detailed ledger. Kind of backwards.
121.	Since R&A funds go entirely to scientists, while the vast majority of mission money goes to contractors, I am obviously biased towards funding R&A. In truth, however, I think a powerful case can be made that the data from most recent missions has been very underutilized because there just aren't enough people to analyze it. I don't know what the exact numbers are, but there must be hundreds of times the volume of planetary data that existed 10 years ago, but only about double the researchers. As far as mission priorities go, it is sad to think of how much knowledge we would have of the overall solar system, with virtually no change in our current knowledge of Mars, if we had taken half of the Mars missions and allocated them for other planets. First priority in cuts should be cutting Mars Scout missions, then stretching the Mars timeline to every other launch opportunity.
122.	It is acceptable to have modest reductions in R&A programs, if these are planned for as part of an overall solar system exploration program. That is, these funding cuts should not come after proposals are solicited, or worse, accepted. I believe the key here is adequately planning for cost over-runs in manned space exploration so that solar system exploration is not raided each year to fund these shortfalls. There needs to be a balance between a healthy R&A program coupled with a variety of small, medium and large missions, whose frequency may need to be scaled back over the near-term to maintain this balance.
123.	Basic research in the core Astrobiology/Exobiology program must have a stable funding base in order to insure that the US retains its global competitive edge in this area.
124.	The Mars folks afre swamped with data yet have an R&A shortfall. Why not cancel a Scout opportunity and give a fraction of that money to R&A.
125.	Astrobiology is such a new and devloping field that is a true example of a multi-discplinary science that it certainly should be developed within the US. It should have a regular long-term funding commitment that is unlikely to change on a yearly basis.
126.	It is important to maintain the continuity of productive programs. Slashing the budget of highly productive R&A programs such as Exobiology/Astrobiology will tell people that this is not a viable career area, and the core scientific community will be devastated for many years to come.
127.	Collecting data via New Frontiers or Flagship missions with cuts in R&A funding is wastefull process as it does not allow for proper utilization of data.
128.	Experimental studies should receive preferrential funding in R&A activities: most analysis is being 'held hostage' to a lack of understanding of basic physics/physical chemistry.
129.	The R&A programs are not merely there to serve the missions. They ARE planetary science. Cut them, and you kill the field. Then, the missions are meaningless. Cut them, even for a year or two, and workers leave the field. Workers that have learned, studied, apprenticed for a decade or more in some cases. Many of us live on soft money from the R&A programs, and are crucial to the field. Lapses in funding mean career changes to us, and a huge loss to the field. I see the overarching quest for life as a short-sighted distraction from the fundamental quest for undertsanding of the universe around us. It should be more broad minded, with understanding the basic properties of the worlds near us as the prime motivator, not simply to look for life or habitability. I think claiming that the public only supports life searches is selling the public short. Plus, we should be advocating our priorities based on the science drivers, not the marketing presumptions. In my mind, the science drivers are NOT heavbily biased toward life, but rather fundamental understanding of the planets. Thank you for working to protect the research programs.
130.	Stick with the decadal surveys, but R&A trumps missions.
131.	The researchers of today are the scribes of tomorow's missions. If funding to research is cut, ALL future space exploration of any flavor suffers. Without the scientist, what good is the science?
132.	During an era of decreased planetary science funding that is not longer than a decade or so, it makes the most fiscal sense to continue to fund NASA R&A at or above current levels, while stretching out large, medium, and small missions. Data analysis and interpretation of mission data are chronically underfunded, and there are enough data in the pipeline for enormous discoveries, even with a stretched out exploration portfolio. Also, continuity in science efforts and priority would be maintained.
133.	R&A program fund should never be reduced nor cut, since it is basical to our every understanding of our solar system. It is the top priority. Flagship missions should be considered only when the budget is more than enough and we have clear vision about what we want by sending crewd spacecraft. I and many people, I believe, feel no necessity of sending human into space in the circumstances.
134.	Core research can not be turned on and off like a mission. The core research requires top people and these can not be attracted to the space fields if it is perceived that one can not survive (from a career point of view) pursuing such interests. Once people leave for other things not opnly are they gone but their students are gone and the continuity of progress is over. If we maintain the science core the missions can be regenerated as funds become more available. If we destroy the science core how we decide what it is worth doing and who will even care!?
135.	The proposed cuts to the R&A program are the worst possible adjustment NASA could make to the Solar System exploration program. R&A is vital to keep the entire field moving forward.
136.	A NASA with little or now science component is a NASA without direction for the future. Science should be the reason any mission is undertaken, regardless of what happens to NASA's budget. In addition, proper funding for the analysis of data obtained by missions that NASA undertakes is the only way of realizing the value of the expenditures made on the hardware that is launched.
137.	Theoretical research and data analysis of existing data is by far the best science return per dollar. It is completely counter productive to cut these to fund additional spac emissions. Without careful data analysis and theoretical interpretation, a mission of any size is not worth doing.
138.	NASA also has an obligation to the citizens of the USA to pursue projects which benefit humanity. To this end, research directly related to planetary science should have the highest priority. This includes environmental science, geology and geophysics, astrobiology, and evolutionary biology, especially related to microorganisms and the origin of life. Expensive manned projects such as the Space Shuttle and ISS do not contribute to our scientific understanding and welfare, and only benefit private contractors and politicians who desire dramatic imagery.
139.	Research and analysis funds allow people to work in science. When large cuts are made to R&A, talented, experienced scientists will permanently leave the field. Sending the most sophisticated instruments to the most exciting places will not advance our understanding much if there are too few scientists to work with the data.
140.	It makes sense to cut R&A only if NASA decided, for instance, to never do any outer solar system missions, in which case the Outer Planets Research Program could be cut (this also assumes there is no more outer planets data to analyse). Continuing the example, if we were to cut all outer planets R&A, we could not effectively plan an outer planets mission. NASA has not announced that it is shutting down specific regions of the solar system to exploration, so it should not be cutting R&A programs. In fact, given all the data that is coming back these days, R&A should be growing!
141.	I agree with the spirit of #2, but not with the wording. It says that funding levels should 'never' be reduced. That is too strong. The present crisis is not the result of a reduction in funding. 'Reduction' would be a 5, 10, even 15% cut. A 50% cut is an attempt to sabotage the scientific mission of NASA. I do not want to see cuts that run so deep, but I am not so maniacal as to insist that all programs should always rise in funding every year, forever.
142.	Human missions are guaranteed to fail if we don't understand the systems/planets to which we are sending them. Preparatory data analysis is critical to mitigating mission cost and danger.
143.	We must keep funding research and education in our labs or we will lose our scientific personnel and world advantage in space science. This is the most important item for these fundamental reasons.
144.	I am an undergraduate student hoping to go into some field of planetary research. I know that most of the funding for this comes from NASA's R&A Programs, so to me, it feels, with the R&A cuts, as if NASA is discouraging people from entering these fields, and that is definitely not helping the United States become competitive in space research fields.
145.	The reduction in R&A funding is long overdue. It will help weed out some of the really poor science and poor scientists that are working in this field. Just look at Icarus and JGR-Planets to see what garbage is being churned out and published after so-called peer review. As for missions, I think the survey gets it wrong... there should be more frequent Discovery and Scout missions than every 18 months or every 4 years. There should be less missions to Mars, overall (and my main research focus IS Mars) and we need to get some good science happening on the surface and below the cloud decks of Venus.
146.	The last decade has been extremely active in the mission area. The mission frequency should be reduced in this declining budget environment so that the Science community can spend some time digesting the data. This is a unique situation and may not apply in general. Astrobiology has been cut drastically in the overrall cut to R&A. This may be because it is not tied to a mission. Still, it is a good and productive program and should be saved.
147.	Data collection by flight missions should supercede funding of data analysis.
148.	BALANCED robotic and human exploration Without R&A don't know what info you have, or how it impacts what you plan for the future.
149.	R&A funding should be preserved at all costs. I am concerned that the proposed budget cuts will decimate the research community and, as a consequence, the expertise needed to intelligently execute the president's Moon/Mars initiative will be lost.
150.	I believe a 'happy medium' can be reached between R&A and missions. While a mission to Mars every launch opportunity is nice, it is not worthwhile without R&A programs that not only support existing researchers but also vigorously supports new scientists and current students. Also, well-funded R&A is critical but also relies on well-planned and timed data return from missions. A REAL benefit can be realized from a 10-year or longer plan that balances missions and research and is not subject to drastic changes with any future changes in the NASA administration. It is extremely unfortunate and wasteful that these types of long term planning have already existed and been cast aside.
151.	I would argue that not only does the science resulting from R&A program help plan future missions, but that it is the *key* component for all missions. Without this critical investment, the return from planetary science missions is essentially lost and the cumulative funding for those missions wasted.
152.	Basic research both in the laboratory and conducted from ground-based and space-based telescopes is a crucial component to understanding the planets and maximizing gains from future and current planetary missions. Large scale missions such as Cassini or Voyager have led to spectacular results where no other class of mission could have brought about these results. Furthermore this is an area where NASA has maintained a lead over ESA and one hopes will continue to maintain this lead.
153.	I would not like to witness the current generation of young graduates - who are the hardest working, and most dedicated I have seen - have their career goals compromised, or lost altogether due to basic research getting sold short. The basic science, regardless of its short-term economic implications, is what we need to stay globally competitive( and we need this desperately) in the decades to come.One only needs to make a cursory examination of the role basic research has played, and the business innovation it has spawned from universities and industrial research labs over the past 80 years. The latter - sad to say - have nearly vanished from the US corporate landscape. But of the latter, I would invite anyone to delve into the 5 volume set: A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, and be amazed at the massive volume of products that have become reality today (lasers, fibre optics, radar, semiconductors just to scratch the surface) based on the foresight of that corporation by placing their bets (and a substantial proportion of their gross earnings too!) on what they prized as pure research.
154.	Research on Earth with space applications such as the MFR, ASTID, and ASTEP programs should be a first priority. These programs promote international cooperation,and simutaneosuly expand our knowlegde of Earth and other planetary bodies. The second priority should be small spacecraft missions. Small spacecraft missions provide vital information essential for determining science goals and allocating resources for future missions. The Huygens probe returned a wealth of data suggesting Titan is similar to Earth. The Mars Scout program has provided essential information about the geology and implications to life in our Solar System. I beleive Large scale spece missions are a waste of resources at this point. There are fewer scientist invloved at the decision making process level and more resources seem to be allocated to the support structure (paperwork) than to the science and engineering of the project. In my opinion, the exploration initiative is a wonderful idea, but at this point it seems more money will be wasted on (infrastructure) than on engineering and science. Small engineering, proof of concepts would be a more productive use of resources. Thanks for providing the survey.
155.	Increasingly, it is impossible to make sense of mission data without extensive research and analysis efforts. It is important that some of this effort be applied before the mission in order to optimize the observation strategy (including instrument selection). Smaller, more focussed missions are better able to meet these challenges today, as long as budget constraints do not force them to shortchange R&A.
156.	Despite their unmatched potential for understanding our solar system, flagship missions are the least resilient to chaotic programmatic shifts. Until sanity is restored to the NASA exploration program as a whole, initiating flagship missions should be deferred and the Solar System Exploration program put in a Survival Mode that retains all the other activities, including R&A. Eventually the natural democratic process should beget Administration Change that will allow NASA to resume an effective exploration program, and at that time the planning for flagship missions can resume.
157.	The draw of large Flagship type missions for solar system exploration has a significant draw to it in that multiple mission goals with a significantly larger budget are incorporated. However, in our current state of space exploration and the general risk of space exploration, I feel that smaller, focused missions provide, statistically, a better chance of success and less loss due to unforseen circumstances. This is why R&A must not be cut, ensuring that specialzed, focused Discovery and New Frontier missions are optimized.
158.	R and D is the most important priority of planetary science because it provides the basis to understand past and present missions, and gives us new ideas for future instruments or missions.
159.	While not represented at all in this survey, the two things that are really being pitted against each other are Science R&A and the shuttle program and ISS. Basically, science is taking the hit for cost overruns in the shuttle and ISS. Operating in a 'rob Peter to pay Paul' mode is bad for both the short and long term health of US space science. If the US hopes to maintain a space science program as well as encourage the next generation of scientists and engineers, these drastic and crippling R&A cuts must be reversed. There has to be a balance between the shuttle and ISS commitments and the science commitment.
160.	R&A should get more money if anything. Otherwise what's the point of spending billions of dollars on missions to gather data if you don't have any money to fund people to analyse the data? And my opinion is that unmanned missions should take priority over manned exploration. The Bush Administrations vision of manned space flight is poorly thought out and largely pointless - unmanned missions and research should not have to suffer because of this.
161.	reserach programs should have highest priority
162.	R&A programs are critical to generating the knowledge we need to plan missions of any size.
163.	A strong R&A program is vital in order to inform the wider objectives of the NASA. If this is not the case, then NASA missions will become a purely engineering exercise rather than robust scientific exploration.
164.	Reallocating funding from basic research and mission planning to human space flight initiatives is a poor long-term strategy for NASA; the impact of flat and/or reduced funding in each of the planetary science areas listed above should be projected, not just in terms of the 'majority rules' results of this survey but also on scales of 5, 10, 20 year science objective and technological development impacts. I have selected Research and Analysis programs as the most critical funding priority because these programs support the widest variety of experiments (theoretical models, laboratory experiments, observational and field studies, mining past mission datasets to set the stage for future mission objectives) and also support the institutions that curate NASA mission data. To cut R&A budgets would also effectively slash the salaries of university and soft money researchers, and the new generations of scientists who work under them. I would also put emphasis on planning medium-scale missions, as they are easier to develop from an engineering standpoint than the smaller Discovery and Scout class missions. Flagship missions can produce amazing results, but not with a skeleton crew at the helm.
165.	The current funding trend for planetary missions is to just gather data and not process it into a usable science product. Thus, when a mission is initially funded, it should be funded at a level to generate these useable science products, not just raw archives. I see this as a critical change to help with R&A.
166.	The 'Research and Analysis Programs' mentioned in question 1 need to include programs in magnetospheric and ionospheric physics, including 'space weather' research and development of predictive capabilities.
167.	Multidisciplinary programs that combine astrophysics, geology and biology are fundamental to our understanding of our world and that of other planets and should be strongly supported.
168.	Missions are performed for scientific investigations, never at the expense of science! Without stable ongoing programs, mission design and subsequent improvements in understanding are crippled. NASA is now being extremely shortsighted and it would take 10-15 years to rebuild the stable science communities it presently has.
169.	I think we as a science community should seek funding opportunities for research and analysis of NASA planetary mission data from outside NASA funding sources. Science that comes of planetary and astronomy missions has an impact on science as a whole, and therefore other stakeholders should take responsibility for some of the R&A costs, whereas NASA should primarily support more hardware development.