RAPID: The Long-Term Effects of Covid-19: Decisions, Discovery, and Impact in the Space Sciences

在新冠肺炎之后，科学将会发生什么？在目前的工作中断和即将到来的经济衰退之间，我们预计联邦资助的科学将面临重大挑战。新冠肺炎让科学家们陷入了预算紧张和实验室里的社会距离的双重困境，这使得持续的研究项目比以前复杂得多。这种病毒在不同州的不同影响也使研究人员在不同机构之间的合作复杂化。科学家现在为应对当前危机而做出的艰难决定，将对下一代科学家的职业生涯、研究和实验产生影响。为了考察新冠肺炎对科学的新影响，我们来看一个联邦政府资助的大科学被当前危机扰乱的案例：行星和空间科学。这些科学家和工程师在建造和指挥探索太阳系的航天器的长期项目上进行合作。通过在线参与和采访，我们将分析行星科学家如何制造工具并维持他们完成工作所需的关系，同时主要局限于他们的家庭。在之前NSF支持的研究的基础上，我们将制定一项行动纲领，表明科学界可以做些什么来渡过风暴，保持发现的路线畅通，保持对多样性和基础设施的投资，并组织成功的游说努力。通过这种方式，我们可以帮助确保在危机期间从公共科学投资中获得最广泛的成果和利益。这个项目考察了基础设施科学的相关工作如何在极端的经济危机和社会距离下站稳脚跟。这项研究将考察研究人员如何在不确定的时代规划未来，计算机传播如何影响决策，以及经济和社会危机如何影响科学领域的多样性倡议。对金融危机的反应在日常实践和漫长的过程中塑造了科学的社会和智力组织。此外，危机时刻有助于科学家完成工作所依赖的往往看不见的社会关系。然而，当前的“新冠肺炎”危机让过去的不确定时期在规模和范围上显得微不足道。该项目在行星科学界进行了为期一年的快速反应观察期，抓住机会在科学界最有可能发生变化的时期深入跟踪该科学界，这一时期有望产生数十年或更长时间的长期后果。这项由联邦政府资助的科学正在经历这场危机的相当大的影响，根据社会距离指导方针，实验室被关闭或开放，延长了与项目交付相关的时间表和费用，并扰乱了现有的合作模式。此外，行星科学家将在今年完成他们的十年调查：每十年进行一次社区参与研究，以确定未来十年航天器发展和科学投资的优先事项。因此，具有持久重要性的决定将在短暂的视频会议和短信中做出，数字民族志专家可以现场出席，但事后无法检索。利用虚拟民族志和在线采访，该项目将跟踪三个未来的任务--正在开发的欧罗巴快艇、拟议中的海王星任务和星际探测器--以及今年计划进行的十年调查。该项目还将检查社交媒体对话，这些对话现在构成了科学家之间的前台聊天。研究这些短暂的和未记录在案的关键互动将使研究人员能够记录该领域历史上关键的一年，并对治理与科学成果、发现和影响之间的关系提出新的见解。他们还将开发一个科学资助连续性工具包，供公共资助的科学家采取行动，表明科学界可以做些什么来渡过风暴，保持发现路线的畅通，保持劳动力多样性，并在前所未有的时代最大限度地发挥科学影响。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

What will happen to science in the wake of COVID-19? Between present work disruptions and a forthcoming recession, we expect significant challenges for federally-funded science. COVID-19 catches scientists in a double bind of both strained budgets and social distancing in the laboratory that make sustaining research programs much more complicated than before. The virus’ varied impact in different states also complicates researcher’s collaborations across different institutions. The tough decisions that scientists make now to navigate the current crisis will have an impact on the coming generation of scientists’ careers, research, and experiments. To examine COVID-19’s emerging impacts on science, we look to a case of federally-funded big science disrupted by the current crisis: planetary and space sciences. These scientists and engineers collaborate on long-term projects that build and command spacecraft that explore the solar system. Through online participation and interviews, we will analyze how planetary scientists build the tools and maintain the relationships they need to get the job done, while largely confined to their homes. Building upon previous NSF-supported research, we will develop a repertoire for action, indicating what scientific communities can do to weather the storm, keep lines of discovery open, maintain investments in diversity and in infrastructure, and organize successful lobbying efforts. In this way we can help to ensure the broadest possible outcomes and benefits from public investment in science during the crisis. This project examines how the relational work of infrastructuring science hold up under extreme economic crisis, and social distancing. The research will examine how researchers plan for the future in uncertain times, how computer-mediated communication impacts decision-making, and how economic and social crises impact diversity initiatives in the sciences. Responses to financial crises shape the social and intellectual organization of science at the level of everyday practice and over the long durée. Further, moments of crisis help surface the often-invisible social relations that scientists depend upon to get the job done. The present COVID-19 crisis, however, makes past periods of uncertainty appear trivial in scale and scope. This project undertakes a rapid-response one-year observational period among the planetary science community, seizing the opportunity to follow a scientific community in depth at its time of greatest potential transformation during a period that promises long-term consequences of decades or more. This federally-funded science is experiencing considerable effects of the crisis, with laboratories are shut down or open under social distancing guidelines, expanding the timeline and expense associated with project delivery, and disruption to established patterns of collaboration. Further, planetary scientists will produce their decadal survey this year: a community engagement study conducted once every ten years to determine the coming decade’s priorities for spacecraft development and scientific investment. As a result, decisions with lasting import will be made in ephemeral, fleeting video-conferenced meetings and text messages, available for a digital ethnographer to attend on the spot but impossible to retrieve after the fact. Using virtual ethnography and online interviews this project will follow three future missions -- the developing Europa Clipper, a proposed mission to Neptune, and an Interstellar Probe – and this year's planned Decadal Survey. The project will also examine the social media conversations that now constitute frontstage chatter among scientists. Examining these ephemeral and undocumented critical interactions will allow the researchers to document a crucial year in the history of the field and to develop novel insights into the relationship between governance and scientific outcomes, discovery, and impact. They will also develop a science funding continuity toolkit for publicly-funded scientists to take action, indicating what scientific communities can do to weather the storm, keep lines of discovery open, maintain workforce diversity, and maximize scientific impact in unprecedented times.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.