NASA wants to know the important technology the commercial space industry needs
Capitalism in space: NASA is now asking the commercial space industry to tell it which of 187 “technology shortfalls” it should give priority to for funding.
The agency has released a list of 187 “technology shortfalls,” or topics where current technology requires additional development to meet NASA’s future needs. The shortfalls are in 20 areas ranging from space transportation and life support to power and thermal management.
Through a website, the agency is inviting people to review the listed technologies and rate their importance through May 13. NASA will use that input to help prioritize those technologies for future investment to bridge the shortfalls.
This decision illustrates well NASA’s effort in the past decade to shift from being the boss which tells the space industry what to do to becoming a servant of that industry. In the past NASA would focus solely on what it considered its needs in deciding what new technology to fund. Often that would result in projects that NASA considered cool, but were dead-ends commercially, never used by anyone.
Now NASA wants to function more like it used to prior to 1957, when it was called the NACA. Then it worked to provide the engineering data that the aviation industry requested. This change is great news, because it means that NASA’s many small technology development contracts will better serve the needs of the industry and its need to make profits, rather the government’s wish list of projects, some of which serve no one’s real need.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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Capitalism in space: NASA is now asking the commercial space industry to tell it which of 187 “technology shortfalls” it should give priority to for funding.
The agency has released a list of 187 “technology shortfalls,” or topics where current technology requires additional development to meet NASA’s future needs. The shortfalls are in 20 areas ranging from space transportation and life support to power and thermal management.
Through a website, the agency is inviting people to review the listed technologies and rate their importance through May 13. NASA will use that input to help prioritize those technologies for future investment to bridge the shortfalls.
This decision illustrates well NASA’s effort in the past decade to shift from being the boss which tells the space industry what to do to becoming a servant of that industry. In the past NASA would focus solely on what it considered its needs in deciding what new technology to fund. Often that would result in projects that NASA considered cool, but were dead-ends commercially, never used by anyone.
Now NASA wants to function more like it used to prior to 1957, when it was called the NACA. Then it worked to provide the engineering data that the aviation industry requested. This change is great news, because it means that NASA’s many small technology development contracts will better serve the needs of the industry and its need to make profits, rather the government’s wish list of projects, some of which serve no one’s real need.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Bob, your comment about NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics – pronounced En-Ay Sea-Ay, NEVER Knack-Ah). To give just a couple of examples the NACA cowling for radial engines was adopted world wide as were the NACA Series of Airfoils and the “Area Rule” for transonic aircraft which as developed by NACA engineer Richard Whitcomb (saving Convair’s bacon after its XF-102 absolutely refused to exceed the speed of sound in one of the greatest performance short falls in history). He also developed the Whitcomb Body to reduce transonic drag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NACA_cowling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NACA_airfoil#Origins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-shock_body
From the linked Space News article:
SLS, sometimes lovingly called the Senate Launch System, came directly from congressional legislation. It was Congress that insisted that NASA make a superheavy launch vehicle and specified the capacities of three versions, but there was no mission to inform the design. Congress designed the rocket to make sure that Shuttle contractors continued having government contracts — economical efficiency and appropriateness to any mission were not priorities. Thus, NASA acknowledges that there are better ways for it to work than to be a toy for politicians and their staffs. NASA administrators are holding their own revolution, apparently attempting to make NASA useful, again.
Well, it isn’t a perfect step, but it is an important step in the right direction. NACA was useful to help the American aviation industry solve their own problems, but this step helps the American aerospace industry solve NASA’s problems. NACA had important resources and facilities that were too expensive for individual companies to build. One example is large wind tunnels.
Many startup NewSpace companies have been able to use NASA’s expertise and knowledge to design their own successful vehicles and spacecraft. This has been a great help.
NASA’s facilities have not been perfect for American industry. Science conducted on ISS is required to become public domain within five years, which limits the ISS’s usefulness for the company that performs that science. Rather than creating proprietary information, they are spending their own money creating public domain information. Hopefully, the commercial space stations will allow companies to keep their own trade secrets to themselves, making it much more profitable to do research in space, greatly increasing the demand for space research. Hopefully, the commercial space stations will allow space manufacturing, which NASA does not let them do now.
Just one factor, out of how many factors? On the other hand, maybe this will not do what we hope it does.