WASHINGTON -A report published Tuesday raises serious questions about NASA’s ability to effectively function as the nation’s preeminent space agency.
The 218-page document, assembled by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) at the behest of Congress, warns that NASA is prioritizing short-term missions and commercial contracts over the people and technology that make its out-of-this-world activities possible, Jack Daleo reports for Flying. Continue reading original article.
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
13 September 2024 - NASEM says that "NASA’s technical infrastructure portfolio is critical for direct project work, technology and concept development, and for use by other entities. Its wind tunnels, for instance, enable world-class aerosciences and aerosystems work performed by NASA, the Defense Department, and U.S. industry, the report says.
"Chronic insufficient funding of infrastructure across the agency has left it with dated fixed assets and enterprise systems that will increasingly hamper the achievement of vital agency missions, the report says. Eighty-three percent of its facilities are now past their design life, with many of the facilities dating back to the 1960s. This aging infrastructure is expensive to maintain, wastes valuable personnel time, and makes it more difficult to attract and retain world-class talent."
The report notes that "High-end computing infrastructure for mission support, due to the rapid pace of advancement and widespread demand in that field, leading to an overburdening of existing resources.
"Space communication capacity, including the Deep Space Network, to meet the current and near-future mission needs of NASA and its international partners."
The full report is available here: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/27519/nasa-at-a-crossroads-maintaining-workforce-infrastructure-and-technology-preeminence
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Jamie Whitney, Senior Editor
Military + Aerospace Electronics
