Earlier this week NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe sat before a console at Mission Control in Houston. With him were NASA Chief Scientist (and astronaut) Shannon Lucid, and Associate Administrator for Space Flight Bill Readdy (also an astronaut).

O'Keefe was there to make a call up to the International Space Station (ISS). Once communication was established, he began to have a short, friendly chat with Astronaut Peggy Whitson, a member of the Expedition 5 crew aboard the ISS.

When they got down to business, O'Keefe asked Whitson, "What is your judgment so far regarding science progress on the ISS?" Whitson replied, "The science we are doing is great. I do think that we should try and do more. We are capable of doing more — but we need to change our way of doing things."

One suggestion she made was to add more science tasks and keep them in a queue or a "buffer" such that the crew could get to them when some free time or scheduling opportunities arose. "This should allow increased output for the days when we can increase our output," she said. (Photo courtesy NASA)

The ability of the ISS to serve as a platform for science — its original purpose — has come under fire recently. Cost overruns have forced NASA to move towards belt-tightening as the project is completed. One key aspect of this is to focus the construction of the ISS toward a phase referred to as "U.S. Core Complete" — i.e. the point at which all of the U.S.-provided parts are in place such that the modules and hardware being contributed by other countries such as Japan and Europe can be added.

Unfortunately, this belt-tightening approach also limits the crew of the ISS to three. Given that all of the international agreements and advanced planning called for a crew of seven, this would serve to limit the ability of the ISS to reach its full scientific potential. Moving beyond "U.S. Core Complete" has not been ruled out by O'Keefe ... but neither has it been assured.

This has left a lot of people worried. One attempt to understand and reprioritize the science to be done on the ISS was "ReMAP" — the Research Maximization and Prioritization Task Force. ReMAP was established by NASA earlier this year with a charter to match up research needs against current ISS plans, and then maximize all of this to get the most science done while focusing the work in a prioritized fashion.

One of the things that ReMAP suggested was providing higher visibility for the interests of the scientific projects onboard the ISS by formally designating someone to keep their interests in mind on a daily basis.

And, of course, this person would be called the "Science Officer".

Once Sean O'Keefe and Peggy Whitson had exchanged a few words, O'Keefe acted in accordance with the ReMAP recommendation that NASA designate a "Science Officer" for every Expedition crew, by asking Whitson to "serve as first Science Officer on the International Space Station."

O'Keefe went on to say that this was being done so as to "extract the maximum utilization of the science potential of the ISS." Whitson replied that she'd be "honored" to assume this position. Over time, the position description for Science Officer will be refined — and some additional support back on Earth will be provided. (Photo courtesy NASA)

In describing Peggy Whitson's credentials in an official press release, O'Keefe said, "Dr. Peggy Whitson is an obvious choice for NASA's first ISS Science Officer. In addition to a doctorate in biochemistry, she is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. Before her selection as an astronaut, Dr. Whitson's NASA career included time spent as a researcher. She helped develop experiments to fly on the space shuttle, served as the project scientist for the Shuttle-Mir program and was the co-chair of the U.S.-Russian Mission Science Working Group."

In a breakfast meeting with reporters at NASA HQ this week, I asked O'Keefe if he could tell me where the term "Science Officer" came from — and noted that there was a seemingly obvious connection to Star Trek. He smiled and replied that the name came from NASA Chief Scientist Shannon Lucid.

It may just be coincidence, but Shannon Lucid was selected in the same astronaut class as Deputy Administrator Fred Gregory — a group whose applicants were recruited with the aid of a NASA TV commercial featuring Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols.

On the current series Enterprise, the Science Officer aboard NX-01 is also a woman — albeit a Vulcan. Given their identical haircuts, job titles, and office location, I just couldn't help imagining Peggy (for a moment) with pointed ears ... minus the smile.

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