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Urge your Senators to stop NASA's drastic cuts to space life sciences

As the Senate reconvenes to make important legislative decisions regarding the future of NASA and its funding, it is crucial to send a letter to your senators as soon as possible to request that they direct NASA to halt its plans to cripple space life sciences until an independent evaluation of such action has been conducted.

Fill in the form below with your name and contact information. Click "submit" and the letter will be automatically sent to both of your Senators. The text in the letter is modifiable, so you may edit your message before it is sent. Your contact information will be included with the message, but it will not be shared with any other organization unless you authorize us to do so.

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Letter to Your Senators
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Dear Your Senator's Name,

I request that you direct NASA to halt its plans to cripple space life sciences through postponements and cancellations until an independent evaluation of such actions has been conducted.

NASA is on the verge of terminating its world-renowned biological research program and significantly curtailing its complementary program in space biomedicine. Such action will not only destroy US leadership in the space life sciences, it will also displace a uniquely skilled cadre of scientists and engineers and sharply curtail the workforce development pipeline in this domain. This will create a serious knowledge gap, from which it will be extremely difficult to recover.

For more than four decades, NASA's biological and biomedical research programs have acquired the knowledge to understand the risks and provide the strategies to mitigate them for low Earth orbit missions and short trips to the moon. However, there remains much work to do before our astronauts are subjected to long-duration missions on the moon and a trip to Mars. For example, during long-term spaceflights beyond low Earth orbit, there are serious concerns about radiation, fracture repair, immune function, sustainable life support, psycho-social adaptations, and performance.

NASA's severe reduction of its space life sciences programs violates three important tenets of the NASA Space Act, its congressional mandate to pursue:

- The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.

- The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes.

- The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere.

Instead of canceling biological research, NASA should strengthen it with the new biotechnologies of the 21st century for the benefit of our astronauts and the expected NASA return on investment to the American taxpayer and return of benefits to humanity in general.

I strongly object to NASA's cancellation of important science and the loss of US predominance in space biology and biomedicine, and the abandonment of the basic principals upon which NASA was founded by the Congress. To repeat my request, I ask that you direct NASA to halt its plans to cripple space life sciences until an independent evaluation of such action has been conducted.

Sincerely,
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