Recently we celebrated the 40th anniversary of Sputnik. However, the Soviet Union's most impressive early achievement was not Sputnik 1, but instead the launching of their second satellite, Sputnik 2, barely a month afterward. Looking back, we can see that Sputnik 2 was the first astrobiology mission. Sputnik 1 was no more than a battery-powered beeper. Sputnik 2 carried a dog named Laika and was equipped with a life support system, physiological telemetry, and even downlinked video.

From the beginning, biology has been a part of space exploration. At first, biology was viewed as an enabling discipline, one that provided the means to send ourselves into space. When spacecraft began to explore other planets, we recognized potential habitats for extraterrestrial life, and we learned that microgravity caused some unexpected changes in living systems. Biology became an intrinsic reason for going into space.

The name astrobiology was first mentioned within NASA in 1995, although the term has its origins in Russia in the early 1950s. After spending a year or so in programmatic limbo, astrobiology suddenly caught on, spurred in great part by last summer's frenzied excitement over the whole ALH84001 Martian meteorite saga, the recent launching of several missions to Mars, the discovery of terrestrial life in extreme environments, discoveries made on Europa by the Galileo mission, and the discovery of planets circling nearby stars.

NASA is now very serious about astrobiology - and is on the verge of soliciting proposals to form a NASA Astrobiology Institute (NABI), which will deal with some, but not all, aspects of astrobiology. According to a recent draft Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN) for the NABI, NASA defines astrobiology as "the study of life in the universe, providing a scientific foundation for the multidisciplinary study of the origin and distribution of life, including the role of physical forces, planetary atmospheres, and ecosystem interactions in the evolution of living systems." In essence, astrobiology is the study of "life, the universe, and everything."

Astrobiology, as it is currently evolving, is not just a broad unifying field of research. It is also an invigorating invitation to think "out of the box" and do things in a way that transcends traditional research categories. Astrobiology is also an invitation to rattle the status quo, something with which not everyone is comfortable. Getting people together to come up with ideas is easy. Weaving these ideas into a series of existing research programs is not. As such, it is the human component of collaboration that is the biggest challenge to astrobiology.

This author recently participated in a workshop at NASA's Ames Research Center that focused on the Next Generation Internet initiative, a multiagency effort also including the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Commerce, and the National Science Foundation. Our astrobiology "affinity group" was composed of a space biologist, several exobiologists, an astrophysicist, an electron microscopist, an astrogeologist, a biochemist, a benthic ecologist, an Antarctic diver, a bone physiologist, and a radio astronomer. Yet we were all astrobiologists. In no time we were at work leaping in and out of our own specialties and coming up with a report on how we would use advanced Internet capabilities to perform astrobiology missions and research.

Again, the ideas come easy. But how will NASA implement these ideas within the context of its existing infrastructure, and how will these programs relate to other research activities outside of NASA?

Astrobiology includes research interests that fall within three of NASA's existing Strategic Enterprises (agency-wide research programs): Space Science, Mission to Planet Earth, and the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS). According to the draft NABI CAN, "NASA's Astrobiology Insititute provides the scientific basis for coordinating these activities to maximize our progress in understanding life's origin, evolution, distribution, and future in the universe."

There has already been some commitment ($10 million) in the current fiscal year by the NASA's Offices of Space Science and Mission to Planet Earth to get the NABI started. However, it is unclear how programmatic management or scientific oversight will be moved out of any of these three enterprises into the program. Nor is it clear how the NABI will perform this cross-discipline coordinating function. While some seed funding has been provided, this is just a start. Much more will be needed.

The future of astrobiology, indeed the future of all of NASA's science programs, is complicated by the looming prospect of continued cuts to NASA's science budgets to cover cost overruns on the International Space Station and the possibility of large cuts to NASA's overall budget starting in fiscal year 1999.

Another challenge is coordinating activities within and between various NASA centers. While cooperation between NASA centers is the norm, there is still a fierce center identity that affects organizing efforts. Although NASA's Ames Research Center has been designated as NASA's lead center for astrobiology - and the eventual host for the NABI - other NASA centers will be involved. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are two of the prominent participants. NASA's Johnson Space Center will also play a role.

There is also the issue of "ownership" of astrobiology. Is it or should it be a NASA-only activity? So far NASA is the only show in town. However, the NABI CAN does openly encourage other government agencies and their laboratories to submit proposals. To date, the term astrobiology is only used in the United States. Does this mean that only the U.S. will be funding astrobiology research?

NASA will be tackling yet another issue: astrobiology is going to be a "virtual discipline," designed from its inception to take advantage of the Internet and its planned descendants. NASA's goal is for the NABI to use the latest advances in network technology to "establish a close and scientifically productive interaction among its members, even though they are geographically separated." As such, here equals there.

Usually a new program at NASA (or any large government agency) brings three costly burdens with it: "bricks and mortar," personnel billets, and travel funds. Herein lies the challenge and the opportunity. As NASA sheds this traditional approach, it will begin to utilize people and research facilities (e.g., government labs, universities, and corporations) where they already are, and facilitate their interactions via the Internet. Indeed, the focus on Internet use is so critical to astrobiology that the draft NABI CAN requires all bidders to be part of the NSF's Next Generation Internet in order to participate.

If successful, this novel approach not only offers the possibility of avoiding the costly buildup and maintenance of a research infrastructure (at a time when government is clearly in a downsizing mood), but also allows the swift addition, deletion, or reconfiguration of resources, regardless of their geographic location, to best adapt to the program.

There is a certain naivete associated with this approach - that all of the participants are willing to go along. NASA is certainly about to take a difficult a task upon itself. But the potential benefits are obvious. Even partial success could change the way space science is done. There is also an inevitable need for this approach. Picture space science 20 years from now with people on the Moon and Mars, or in transit between them for long periods of time, and remotely operated probes operating across the outer Solar System. The current way of doing science simply won't work.

Overall, NASA is very much on the right track. There are, however, two things to which NASA needs to pay more attention as it assembles its Astrobiology Institute.

First is the appropriate use of network technology. Just as NASA charges ahead with these new high-bandwidth desktop implementations of the Next Generation Internet, which will afford users a seamless virtual presence regardless of their location, hopefully NASA will also make the virtual discipline of astrobiology "backward compatible" so existing capabilities are not overlooked. The recent success of the vast planetwide Internet audience for the Mars Pathfinder landing should be clear evidence that people everywhere want to participate in the exploration of space, even if they have to do it on a dial-up service from home at 28.8 kbps.

Second is NASA's total avoidance of the acronym or the concept of SETI - the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Astrobiology, as it is currently evolving, deals with every conceivable aspect of life's origin, evolution, and distribution in the universe. Indeed, some of the advanced telescopes NASA has proposed would be capable of imaging and analyzing planets circling other stars, and could detect a variety of chemical compounds in their atmospheres, including those produced by a technologically adept civilization. If we are willing to look for evidence of extraterrestrial life and civilizations, why then are we so shy about wanting to listen for (and then talk to) them?

If NASA accomplishes what it plans, a paradigm shift in the way it does research might well be the result. It won't happen overnight. Indeed, this author views initial activities such as the NABI as more of a paradigm "nudge." But astrobiology, the discipline, will be far more than just the institute. For astrobiology to truly come into its own, NASA is going to have to put significant funding in place and come up with a clear organizational niche for the field. Right now, it is not precisely clear where astrobiology fits in the overall scheme of things.

A new outlook such as astrobiology is what you would hope would arise after four decades of space exploration. As this century closes, we have done our initial recon of the Solar System and have spotted the more interesting places. We know how to go to there, and what to look for. Now all we need is a unifying theme to pull it all together.

Astrobiology is still in its infancy and will be growing up in a world where money is tight and old habits are not easily changed. It can succeed if all involved are willing to challenge established managerial assumptions, go with ideas even if they are not their own, and dare to truly embrace the concept of what it means to explore a living universe and what is required to make that dream a reality.

Look ahead a few generations. Picture a latter-day Charles Darwin in a research submarine prowling the oceans beneath the ice of Europa, a Mary Leakey with a rock hammer and a collection bag on the shores of an ancient Martian sea, or a Carl Sagan discussing the nuances of alien grammar on a talk show. That is what astrobiology will be all about. It starts now.