18 April 2002 Volume 416 Issue no 6882 NASA needs ‘the vision thing’ Planetary scientists and astronomers may fare reasonably well under the US space agency’s new budget-conscious chief. But in the long term, can NASA provide the inspiration to excite future generations about these disciplines? ast week, 41 years to the day after Yuri Gagarin made humanity’s planetary science, he will hopefully prove a friendly administrator, first voyage into space, NASA’s new administrator Sean O’Keefe steering his agency “where the science dictates that we go”, as he put Lwent to Syracuse University in upstate New York to deliver his it last week. first major policy address. Flanked by two congressmen who chair But taking a longer view, science could lose out if O’Keefe turns committees that monitor NASA’s activities, O’Keefe outlined a his back entirely on what the first President George Bush once called vision that was most notable, well, for its deliberate lack of vision. “the vision thing”. Human exploration has a unique romantic appeal. Don’t expect any giant leaps on O’Keefe’s watch. How many of the NASA’s current principal investigators were first This will be a disappointment to all those who’ve been tugging turned towards a career in research by the excitement of the Apollo on NASA’s sleeve ever since the last Moon landing, asking when the programme? And how many young and inquiring minds will be lost agency will head off on its next big adventure. At Syracuse, and at to space science if our TV screens are never again lit up with images practically every other public forum since taking office in January, of astronauts exploring an alien world? NASA’s chief has subtly sent the message: we’re not sending astro- There is still the ISS, of course. But it never set the world of science nauts to Mars any time soon, so stop asking when. alight, and as it gets progressively whittled down, it looks less like a In part, O’Keefe’s hands are tied by fiscal reality. He has been hired viable lab and more like a vehicle for channelling taxpayers’ money by a US administration that wants to bring NASA’s budget — in to aerospace contractors. There’s little inspiration to be gained from particular that of the International Space Station (ISS) — under watching NASA’s finest sitting in a tin can. control. The current White House admires the pragmatism of cor- We may not yet be ready to send astronauts to Mars. But ideas porate managers, and doesn’t wax sentimental about exploring space for other, more practical destinations are beginning to bubble up ‘because it’s there’. So the new administrator talks about building even as the human spaceflight programme faces its worst identity capability and investing in technologies such as nuclear propulsion crisis in years. For example, astronauts could be sent on geological that will enable somebody else to undertake grand voyages at some field trips to near-Earth asteroids. Such journeys would in many ways point in the indeterminate future. be easier than landing on the Moon, and would push the boundaries O’Keefe says that technology and science, not exploration, will of human exploration for the first time in 30 years, while returning be his watchwords. For researchers in space-based astronomy and useful scientific information. I Women don’t want to be ‘one of the boys’ At the top of Japan’s scientific establishment, women are faced with a past they thought they had escaped. t the annual meeting of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan academic establishment — mostly the older portion — just doesn’t last December, there was a special symposium featuring a seem to get it. Apanel made up entirely of prominent Japanese women scien- This has led to some awkward situations. Official gatherings of tists. Held to highlight the achievements of women in research, the senior scientists often have the atmosphere of a men’s club. On one symposium provided evidence that Japanese science is making some level, perhaps, it is encouraging that senior women are now invited to headway in the quest for gender equality. such gatherings. But there is little satisfaction to be gained from Thanks to the courage of prominent women scientists in exposing attending an event that causes you to squirm with embarrassment. examples of discrimination (see Nature 410, 404–406; 2001), Japan is Some among the new class of prominent women researchers, for facing up to its poor record in promoting women to senior positions. instance, have been given the ‘honour’ of participating in outings in University departments and academic society committees now know which scientists are entertained by geisha. that it looks progressive to have a woman among their members. And Geisha are traditional purveyors of song, dance, jokes and various at increasing numbers of scientific meetings, childcare facilities are other arts. But there are also sexual overtones to their work, which provided to make it easier for researcher–mothers to participate. usually involves entertaining successful men. Leaving aside the issue But how deep is this new-found commitment to women’s rights? of whether scientific organizations should be spending the large Not very, argue many of the women who have been let into Japan’s sums needed to invite a geisha on other, more practical concerns, the upper scientific echelons. They still face accusations that they were organizers of such events should be more sensitive to the attitude promoted just because they were women — and, indeed, many of participants. suspect that they received their position as a token gesture. One of “It was clearly sexual. It made me feel uncomfortable,” laments the panellists who participated in the December special symposium one researcher of her encounter with a geisha. “But I was polite to her, said she would never do it again. “I am a researcher, not a woman and she was polite to me.” researcher,” she told Nature. Unfortunately, Japanese etiquette also required her to be polite to When it comes to a real understanding of sexual discrimination, whoever organized the outing. But an insult is an insult, no matter or of sexual harassment for that matter, a sizeable part of Japan’s how well-dressed and sweet-sounding. I NATURE | VOL 416 | 18 APRIL 2002 | www.nature.com © 2002 Macmillan Magazines Ltd 663.