When NASA established the Lunar Science Institute at the NASA Ames Research Center in 2008, the space agency was in the midst of the Constellation program with plans to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020. Since President Barack Obama announced plans in 2010 to refocus the U.S. human spaceflight program on travel to a near-Earth asteroid and ultimately to Mars, NASA officials have looked for ways to expand the mission of the institute to reflect the changing priorities of the space agency.

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Debra Werner is a correspondent for SpaceNews based in San Francisco. Debra earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University. She is a recipient...