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Microgravity Research Opportunities for the 1990s: Preface
Microgravity Research Opportunities
for the 1990s
Preface
For many years, the Space Studies Board (SSB) has provided scientific
advice to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in discipline-
oriented strategy reports intended to assist NASA in developing the best possible
scientific research programs for the future. In 1989, the SSB created the
Committee on Microgravity Research (CMGR) to investigate the maturity and
readiness of the field for the development of a long-range, comprehensive
research strategy. The report of that committee, Toward a Microgravity Research
Strategy (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1992), concluded that "the
field as a whole would benefit from the formulation of a long-range research
strategy and that such a strategy should be developed as soon as possible" (p.
1).
The CMGR was then made a standing committee of the SSB and was
charged with developing that strategy. After careful consideration of the current
REPORT MENU
status and content of the microgravity program at NASA, the committee found it
NOTICE
necessary to modify this charge somewhat. Due to the diversity and breadth of
MEMBERSHIP
this field, the committee has chosen to place the emphasis of this report on
PREFACE
priorities and recommendations. The scientific disciplines contained within the
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
microgravity program, and which are covered in this report, include fluid
PART I
mechanics and transport phenomena, combustion, biological sciences and
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2 biotechnology, materials science, and microgravity physics. This represents an
PART II enormously broad spectrum of science, and a determination of the relative
CHAPTER 3 amount of support that is justified for individual disciplines and subdisciplines is
CHAPTER 4 difficult to make without a set of overriding criteria (such as the value to industry)
CHAPTER 5
to use in the evaluation process. In the absence of such criteria, the formulation
CHAPTER 6
of a detailed program strategy was not possible. Therefore, the committee
CHAPTER 7
believed that providing general program guidance in the form of priorities and
PART III
recommendations for research was a more useful and appropriate response to
CHAPTER 8
the given charge. The following report represents the result of that effort.
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
Among the previous National Research Council reports in this field, the
following are particularly relevant.
Materials Processing in Space (National Academy of Sciences,
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Microgravity Research Opportunities for the 1990s: Preface
Washington, D.C., 1978; the "STAMPS" report) attempted to provide guidance for
NASA's program by assessing the scientific and technological underpinnings of
the materials processing in space program and providing a clear understanding
of the benefits, if any, to be expected from exploitation of the characteristics of
the space environment for processing materials. As an early examination of
NASA's low-gravity experiment program (pre-shuttle), the report addressed
fundamental scientific and administrative questions about the directions that
program should follow. One such issue was the production of materials in space
for commercial use, which the report concluded was not feasible. The scientific
recommendations detailed the specific research areas most likely to benefit from
a low-gravity environment, and the administrative recommendations included a
call for a rigorous peer review process and an extensive ground research
program. In fact, the current NASA program closely mirrors the report's
recommendations. Though recent flight experiments are considerably more
sophisticated than those examined by the STAMPS committee, the continuing
scarcity of available flight results requires that assessments of the utility of many
areas of microgravity research be based on their potential rather than on past
performance.
Space Science in the Twenty-First Century: Imperatives for the
Decades 1995 to 2015. Fundamental Physics and Chemistry (National Academy
Press, Washington, D.C., 1988) attempted to identify opportunities for future
research efforts in relativistic gravitation and microgravity science (but not
including applied research or industrial and manufacturing processes). NASA
requested this study in 1984, in part because it expected the space station to
become available around 1995 and wanted to be prepared with a viable space
science strategy that had been implemented on missions prior to space station
operations. At the time the report was written, NASA's microgravity research was
concentrated under the Physics and Chemistry Experiments in Space (PACE)
program. Only about 15 investigations were funded under PACE, in comparison
with more than 200 investigations in the 1993 microgravity program at NASA.
The report reflected the relatively small scale of the early program by primarily
addressing specific research questions as opposed to the broad disciplines into
which microgravity research is now divided.
A number of people who assisted the committee during its preparation of
this report deserve special thanks for their contributions: Robert Rhome, Roger
Crouch, Gary Martin, and Brad Carpenter of NASA Headquarters; John Givens
and George Sarver of NASA Ames Research Center; Jack Salzman of Lewis
Research Center; Dudley Saville of Princeton University; and Gregory Dobbs of
United Technologies Research Center.
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