NSS WikiDescribe ConradAbstract here.
348 Making the Vision Real: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Space Exploration Exploration is a biological imperative-- all of us life-forms seem to do it, some to greater degrees than others. One way to maximize the value of exploration, particularly high-cost exploration like that of the solar system and beyond is to put the muscle of scientific rigor behind it. Add to scientific rigor a business plan and a systems engineering approach, and now we can set coordinates and make things happen. Astrobiologists have been working in a cross-discipline environment for a dozen years now, developing both the science and the technology in synchrony. We bring both methods and tools to the task, and we have explored some pretty extreme environments in the process. Here we present one vision for space exploration which includes the tools, the approach, some of the costing factors and a timeline to bring both humans AND robots rapidly into the next level of space exploration.