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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.