Futuristic NASA think tank to be shut down
21:39 20 March 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee

NASA will likely shut down its Institute for Advanced Concepts, which funds research into futuristic – and often far-out – ideas in spaceflight and aeronautics, officials say. The controversial move highlights the budgetary pressures the agency is facing as it struggles to retire the space shuttles by 2010 and develop their replacement.

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) was established to "give an opportunity for people outside of NASA to develop really revolutionary and creative concepts for future aeronautics and space missions", says Robert Cassanova, who has served as the institute's director since its inception in February 1998.

The institute, which operates from an office in Atlanta, Georgia, US, receives about $4 million per year from NASA. Most of that is used to fund research into innovative technologies; recent grants include the conceptual development of spacecraft that could surf the solar system on magnetic fields, motion-sensitive spacesuits that could generate power and tiny, spherical robots that could explore Mars.

Now, the future development of those and other projects has been thrown into doubt, since NIAC was unofficially told by NASA last week that it was to be shut down, perhaps in August. "We've been verbally informed that that is likely to happen, but we don't have anything official yet," Cassanova told New Scientist.

Limited funding

The reason appears to be down to NASA's tight budget. The agency funds NIAC through its exploration systems programme, which also pays for the development of the shuttle's planned replacement – the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and Ares rockets.

That programme is expected to lose an estimated $600 million or so in the agency's 2008 budget due to the higher-than-expected costs of returning the shuttles to flight after the Columbia disaster in 2003 and new legislation limiting NASA's 2007 funding to that of 2006 (see Budget cuts may delay shuttle replacement).

"NASA is in a very difficult position," Cassanova says. "The cuts have to come from somewhere."

But Keith Cowing, editor of the independent website NASAWatch, which broke news of the likely shutdown on Tuesday, says it does not make sense for NASA to cut funding to the institute. "This is one of the few places at NASA that embodies far-thinking, new stuff," he told New Scientist. "When they're cutting stuff like this, they're desperate, or stupid, or both."

Small investment

He acknowledges that NASA's chief, Mike Griffin, "does not have enough money to do things that would normally be on NASA's plate". But he argues that the research NIAC funds is "the sort of stuff that a very small investment could yield a very great return".

Griffin has been criticised in the past for slashing NASA's science budget to fund overruns in the space shuttle programme (see NASA to divert cash from science into shuttle). If NASA now shuts down NIAC to save $4 million in its annual $17 billion budget, it signals Griffin is "cutting down the forest and ploughing up the fields and throwing it all in the furnace", Cowing says.

"The more money you need, the harder it is to find," he says. "They've been through that last year and the year before. Now they're going after nickels and dimes."

NASA could not be reached for comment on the possible shutdown. But Cassanova says he expects a formal, written announcement about it "fairly soon".

"We're not complaining about NASA," he emphasises. "Obviously, we're disappointed. A lot of good things have been accomplished over the last nine years, and it's because NASA did put the money into it. We just wish they had more funding to increase the pace of exploration."

NASA has a tight budget because of the idiots that were voted into power in Washington. We have already spent more on the Iraq war than we have spent on NASA since it was chartered in 1957. Be careful, American voters, you get what you vote for.

I do really wonder why those fools are closing the institute?!!!

Recently I was viewing by CNN how one idiot was trying to silence Alan Gore over the global warming issue. I was surprised by such an absolute disrespect to former US vice-President during the realm of which US advanced so significantly.

Looks like that “something wrong in US ‘kingdom’”.

Indeed, it is quite sad that money is going to war instead of to new ideas. I wonder why we dont put billions into peace?

Seems to emphasise a policy of 'keep shooting, stop thinking'.

Forces of decay always make attempt to overrun Civilization.
But the Civilization will able to protect itself. At least I hope so.

it's a bit hard to define the source of the decay sometimes though and, for that matter, the civillisation !

simons starting to sound like me lol. Definitions are essential to communication, words are used to convey ideas.

So how does a person define civilization? Is it a group of people together? if you alone on an island, is that still civilization? If you were to go back 500 years in time, is their civilization? how about 4000 years? What is civilised but a perception based off the current state of the world as we know it?

When does something start decaying and when does it stop, are things not always decaying and changing? If so, then are we talking about the severity or the level of change that occurs over a set period of time?

If thats the case then we need a definition as to where something stops being not decaying and starts being in a state of decay.

it really depends how far down the rabbit hole you wanna go.

There is such a thing as averaging. The Average of Dynamic Factor of Civilization [ADFC] (let me name it in such a way) should grow.

1. dADFC/dt>0 , you have growth.
2. dADFC/dt=constant, you have stagnation.
3. dADFC<0/dt, you have decay.

ADFC growth for long period of time can be called Golden Age, e.g. the Rule of Queen Elisabeth.
You can choose some time step to calculate ADFC, e.g. 7 years for developing countries and 3 years for Advanced Nations.

The other question how to calculate ADFC. It is a nice task for an advanced researcher to define proper formula for ADFC calculation. In my opinion it should incorporate quite many parameters.

Nations were ADFC is high AND also grows fast one can call Civilized.

Try to play Civilization IV, nice game, concepts are well polished, interesting ideas introduced, esp. birth of Great People ('Gods' living among men). Sid Meyers mastered excellent demonstration. Though the Game still needs improvements in matters of Maps and Options. I think some graphical and conceptual elements of Civilization II had to be preserved anyway and the replaceable parts concepts from Alpha Centauri had to be transferred to Civ. IV as well. Whatsoever, Civ. IV is an excellent exemplification. I do strongly recommend to consider it as a visual example.

One can find quite many things in the rabbit hole. Those who go, those find, and those who do not go, they watch TV.

Pull a rabbit out of the whole and have a look at which hole it is.

You are a canning boy Simon.

"canning boy" I am unfamiliar with the term but it did me a giggle make for a moment. Would you explain please?

Sorry that is my specific dyslexia, it is from childhood.

I was meaning "cunning boy".

Explain what? Pulling "rabbit from the whole" is a cunning thing indeed.

The "canning boy" term was what explaining now done. Thanks.

You are welcome.

Google for: 363 tons of cash
- that's the priority

it's unfortunate, a modern-day tragicomedy. But what are scientists supposed to do, become political activists? Their priority is (or should be) the science, not the political bs, though unfortunately there's a lot of politics in science notwithstanding.