Pitching Ideas

Dozens of spacecraft are keeping their eyes and ears on the universe, and more are on the way. But it usually takes years from the time a mission is first proposed until it flies in space — and a lot of good candidates never make it.
At an astronomy conference earlier this year, several teams pitched their ideas for future missions:
AUDIO: Al Kogut. I’m an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. PIXIE is a mission to measure the blackbody spectrum and the polarization of the microwave background with a goal toward understanding basically the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang to today, all in one mission....
Glenn Schneider, I’m an astronomer and principal investigator for the EXCEDE mission concept. EXCEDE is designed to study the formation, evolution, architectures, and diversity of exoplanetary systems by studying the circumstellar dust and debris in those systems.
NASA periodically asks for mission proposals — either to meet specific science goals, or to look