The Social Sciences Interdisciplinarity for Astronomy and Astrophysics -- Lessons from the History of NASA and Related Fields

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of social sciences in astronomy and astrophysics, highlighting historical roles, current gaps, and the need for increased interdisciplinarity, supported by survey insights from the scientific community.

Contribution

It provides a historical and contemporary analysis of social sciences' role in space sciences and presents survey data on interdisciplinary needs and experiences.

Findings

Social sciences have historically contributed to NASA research.

There is a significant gap in social science interdisciplinarity in space sciences.

Scientists express a strong need for more social science integration.

Abstract

In this paper we showcase the importance of understanding and measuring interdisciplinarity and other -disciplinarity concepts for all scientists, the role social sciences have historically played in NASA research and missions, the sparsity of social science interdisciplinarity in space and planetary sciences, including astronomy and astrophysics, while there is an imperative necessity for it, and the example of interdisciplinarity between social sciences and astrobiology. Ultimately we give voice to the scientists across all fields with respect to their needs, aspirations and experiences in their interdisciplinary work with social sciences through an ad-hoc survey we conducted within the Astro2020 Decadal Survey scientific community.