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Space Studies Board Annual Report 2012

The original charter of the Space Science Board was established in June 1958, 3 months before the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) opened its doors. The Space Science Board and its successor, the Space Studies Board (SSB), have provided ...

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Zero-Sustainment Aircraft for the U.S. Air Force: A Workshop Summary

Overall Air Force weapon system sustainment (WSS) costs are growing at more than 4 percent per year, while budgets have remained essentially flat. The cost growth is due partly to aging of the aircraft fleet, and partly to the cost ...

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NASA's Strategic Direction and the Need for a National Consensus

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is widely admired for astonishing accomplishments since its formation in 1958. Looking ahead over a comparable period of time, what can the nation and the world expect of NASA? What will be the ...

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Reusable Booster System: Review and Assessment

On June 15, 2011, the Air Force Space Command established a new vision, mission, and set of goals to ensure continued U.S. dominance in space and cyberspace mission areas. Subsequently, and in coordination with the Air Force Research Laboratory, the ...

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The Effects of Solar Variability on Earth's Climate: A Workshop Report

On September 8-9, 2011, experts in solar physics, climate models, paleoclimatology, and atmospheric science assembled at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado for a workshop to consider the Sun's variability over time and potential Sun-climate connections.

While ...

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Systems Integration for Project Constellation:Letter Report

With the announcement of the Vision for U.S. Space Exploration, NASA has formed a new Exploration Systems Enterprise charged with development of systems to be used in the exploration of the moon, Mars, and other destinations. A key ...

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Continuing Kepler's Quest: Assessing Air Force Space Command's Astrodynamics Standards

In February 2009, the commercial communications satellite Iridium 33 collided with the Russian military communications satellite Cosmos 2251. The collision, which was not the first recorded between two satellites in orbit--but the most recent and alarming--produced thousands of pieces of ...

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A Review of NASA Human Research Program's Scientific Merit Processes: Letter Report

At the request of NASA, an IOM committee reviewed NASA Human Research Program's (HRP's) Scientific Merit Assessment Processes for directed research. Directed research is commissioned or noncompetitively awarded research that is not competitively solicited because of specific reasons, such as ...

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Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society

From the interior of the Sun, to the upper atmosphere and near-space environment of Earth, and outward to a region far beyond Pluto where the Sun's influence wanes, advances during the past decade in space physics and solar physics--the disciplines ...

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Earth Science and Applications from Space: A Midterm Assessment of NASA's Implementation of the Decadal Survey

Understanding the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment and their implications requires a foundation of integrated observations of land, sea, air and space, on which to build credible information products, forecast models, and other tools for ...

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