Getting NASA's Groove Back

The National Academy of Sciences calls for the creation of an independent organization within NASA to develop cutting-edge technologies

By Joel Schectman

A panel of leading American scientists is calling for the U.S. space program to shift priorities in the years ahead to become more innovative and competitive. The panel's report, issued July 7 by the National Academy of Sciences, says the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) could better serve the country's interest if it aligned its work with economic, environmental, and strategic goals.

Among other things, the reports suggests the creation of an independent organization within NASA to develop cutting-edge technologies—much like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) does for the Defense Dept. "Many people no longer believe that NASA is pushing the frontier in space," says Ray Colladay, vice-chairman of the panel, in an interview.

The report comes at a challenging time for NASA. The space shuttle fleet, which has brought American crew and cargo to the International Space Station for the past decade, is aging and set to be retired at the end of the month. This leaves the U.S. unable to take astronauts into space on its own until the Shuttle's successor, the Orion, is ready to take off. That is expected to happen no earlier than 2015. In the meantime, America will have to rent seats on Russia's Soviet-era Soyuz ships to take crew to the Space Station.

Nostalgia for Apollo

This transport gap comes at the tail end of a shuttle era that experts in the space industry say has been disappointing in terms of technological advancement. "I grew up watching the Apollo landings," says Jeff Greason, chief executive of XCOR Aerospace, a California company that plans to bring tourists into space. "A lot of people thought we would be much further along by now. We thought space would be part of the economic sphere, a place where people could live and work and develop economic activities that are part of our lives." In Greason's childhood, it took only 10 years for the U.S. to put an astronaut on the moon. In the 30 years since the creation of the shuttle system, there have been no major developments in its propulsion system. NASA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.

Budget priorities changed from the time of Greason's childhood. Although NASA's budget has risen to nearly $18 billion from $4.5 billion in 1966, it constitutes less than 1% of the federal budget now, down from more than 4% at the height of the Apollo program. But budget issues are only part of the reason for the technical lag. NASA's emphasis in research and development has been on specific missions and related goals, instead of long-term advancements. "The development of advanced technology is mission-oriented and tied to mission risk mitigation rather then pushing advanced technology for future development with what the country would like to do 20 years from now," says Colladay.

Colladay says that more emphasis on long-term R&D could have led to a new generation of more advanced shuttles, as well as more innovation in reusable propulsion systems and in compact nuclear energy for longer space-based missions.

Calls for R&D Push

The panel believes that an emphasis on R&D will allow NASA to have a greater effect on the wider population. The development of solar panels in space, which could send microwave electricity back to earth, and better monitoring of global warming are two areas in which NASA could have a strong impact, says Colladay.

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