Psyche Mission Offers Down-to-Earth Lessons
October 11, 2023
NASA is set to launch a spacecraft—named Psyche, after the asteroid it will target—to gather clues about how Earth’s innermost core formed. Yet even before the robotic explorer lifts off, the mission is revealing ways to improve how most research is conducted in the United States, the mission’s principal investigator maintains in Issues. A key change, Lindy Elkins-Tanton writes, is moving away from the “hero model” of science and engineering, typically centered around a “big name” scholar, and instead building collaborative teams that embrace a culture in which “each person is valued according to their contribution rather than title.”