UCF town hall on March 31

The University of Central Florida is hosting a town hall meeting on Thursday, March 31, about NASA’s planetary missions in the next decade.

The public meeting is sponsored by the National Research Council, which just completed the Decadal Survey 2013-2022 for NASA and the National Science Foundation. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in room 102 of the Engineering II Building on UCF’s East Orlando campus.

The council conducts this survey every 10 years. The purpose is to gather consensus in the scientific community about what non-manned planetary missions the space agency should focus on in the next decade. The recommended missions are based on their scientific value and keep in mind conservative projected funding.

The council held several public meetings as it completed its work. This month, the group released its survey and recommendations and is holding Town Hall meetings across the country through April to share those recommendations with the public.

Stephen Mackwell, a member of the steering committee that oversaw the survey, will be at UCF to give a summary of the project, answer questions and get public feedback. Mackwell is the director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.