{"id":595,"date":"2007-05-02T16:32:17","date_gmt":"2007-05-02T21:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=595"},"modified":"2007-05-03T01:47:07","modified_gmt":"2007-05-03T06:47:07","slug":"niac-not-dead-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=595","title":{"rendered":"NIAC not dead yet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, stories were circulating that NASA was getting ready to close down NIAC, a decision\u00a0which many of us found to be\u00a0incomprehensible.\u00a0 I blogged<\/a> about this story earlier as did many others.<\/p>\n

Via Andy Price, I’ve become aware of an effort\u00a0within NIAC to try and save the agency.\u00a0 They have asked that people who can help\u00a0them demonstrate\u00a0benefits of NIAC funding in the past,\u00a0contact NIAC with this information.\u00a0 Specifically, they are looking for a demonstrated ROI in areas such as;<\/p>\n

1) Subsequent investment by NASA, other government agencies, or the private sector.
\n2) Intellectual contributions that have resulted in an agency putting resources into its own studies of a concept. For example, prompted by the success of a Phase I or Phase II concept, an agency convenes panels to study the work, includes it in a decadal plan, or otherwise funds studies of its own.
\n3) Unexpected spin-off technologies. For example, some NIAC studies have resulted in new medical technologies.
\n4) The production of technical PhD and Master\u2019s level students.
\n5) The production of new jobs.
\n6) Enhancement of public understanding of agency missions (for most of you, this would be beneficial PR for NASA, or NRO, or DARPA).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For us in the Space Elevator community, the results of NIAC funding have been nothing short of revolutionary; before their funding of Dr. Bradley Edward’s research, an SE was strictly a Science-Fiction concept only.\u00a0 Now it’s something that is an actual possibility.\u00a0 The Space Elevator project is gaining public momentum and acceptance, to the point of being the subject of conferences,\u00a0in museum exhibits, on TV shows and in Space Elevator games (both for “adults” – ie. chasing after real prize money and for kids, in the Robotic games).\u00a0 To me, this is what “blue-sky” funding is all about; taking a concept which is totally revolutionary and finding a way\u00a0whereby it can actually happen.<\/p>\n

At least that’s something along the lines of what I’m going to say in my letter (email, actually) to NIAC.<\/p>\n

Here’s another article<\/a> about NIAC, this from Wired.com in 2004.<\/p>\n

Further words from Brad Edwards on the potential defunding of this program; “My general thoughts are that this is a very poor decision on NASA’s part. NIAC has demonstrated that it can produce results on a small budget unlike other components of NASA proper.\u00a0 Cutting NIAC is easy simply because it is an external contract.\u00a0 NASA would be better served by taking the more difficult road and trimming the non-productive components inside the centers and funding development of new technologies that can save time and money while reducing risk and producing better results in the long-run.\u00a0 NIAC and programs like it, if utilized, can provide the tools to define NASA roadmaps and programs that have low risk and produce the results needed to succeed.”<\/em><\/p>\n

If you want to offer some words to NIAC, send them to Diana Jennings (djennings [AT] niac.usra.edu).\u00a0 Dr Edwards says to send “Specific results, work, ROI are best but stated support can’t hurt.”<\/p>\n

Amen to that.\u00a0 Let’s let ’em know that what they do matters…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, stories were circulating that NASA was getting ready to close down NIAC, a decision\u00a0which many of us found to be\u00a0incomprehensible.\u00a0 I blogged about this story earlier as did many others. Via Andy Price, I’ve become aware of an effort\u00a0within NIAC to try and save the agency.\u00a0 They have asked that people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}