85
It's required to by the legislation that created it, the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958.
FUNCTIONS OF THE ADMINISTRATION
Sec. 203. (a) The Administration, in order to carry out the purpose of
this Act, shall--
(1) plan, direct, and conduct aeronautical and space activities;
(2) arrange for participation by the scientific ...
39
I drive by it every day... We do it for the benefit of all:
Really though, the government has a vested interest in making sure we (the United States) remain a technology leader in the world because it's good for the economy. Private industry is usually too risk-averse to undertake basic research with no current applications even though the payoff can ...
21
Because they're scientists, and publishing your results is what scientists do. There's a reason why the final step of basically every research methodology used in academia is "publish your results" (and I'm only saying "basically every" because I'm not an expert on the field of research methodologies, so while it's possible that there's one obscure one out ...
9
NASA is not a stand-alone thing. It is the civilian part of the space industry, and partially, the military industry of the USA. They work together.
For example: they publish the photos, what the Hubble made. This is very useful for the whole humanity. But the same (or very similar) technologies are used in spy satellites, too. Only the watch not the sky, ...
6
Its still in active development. Two options for the sample return ascent vehicle are being worked, either a single-stage paraffin-MON hybrid vehicle or a two-stage solid fueled vehicle. No decision has been made yet on which will be selected (if the program continues at all, given Starship etc). Both options have similar mass, payload capacity, system ...
5
Read: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/05/nasa-briefly-crew-dragon-anomaly-spacex-schedule/
NASA is waiting for progress on the Crew Dragon capsule (which exploded during an abort test in April 2019) and Mr. Bridenstine is upset that Mr. Musk is spending effort on Starship instead of delivering on the NASA contract. Bridenstine expressed a similar ...
5
During his tenures as Chief of the Astronaut Office and Director of Flight Crew Operations, Deke Slayton had the greatest influence over the titles of astronauts.
NASA's predecessor agency -- the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) -- was more involved in aircraft than spacecraft. Their research resulted in the Bell X-1 supersonic aircraft ...
4
I nominate "Terra" launched in December 1999. 2 billion dollars is a bit of a stretch perhaps - the press kit says $1.3B, but excludes a bunch of stuff.
does not include ground system cost nor the cost of the Canadian or
Japanese instruments
The Terra instrument(s) annotated as CERES in this picture...
...match well to this picture from the Weld Plus ...
4
During Project Apollo it was extremely common.
Two among many:
Sam Phillips, Air Force general who managed Air Force missile development programs, drafted by NASA to direct the entire Apollo Program.
Joseph Shea, from Bell Labs and the Titan inertial guidance system, brought in to head the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office.
For more you can browse the "...
3
The Search for Life on Mars (Christopher P. Mckay, 1996) quotes
Klein, H. P.: 1978, Icarus 34, 666–674.
Klein, H. P.: 1979, Rev. Geophys. Space Phys. 17, 1655–1662.
Horowitz, N. H.: 1986, To Utopia and Back: The Search for Life in the Solar System, W.
Also by Mckay:
4 .McKay C. P. et al. 1998. The Mars Oxidant experiment (MOx) for Mars '96. Planet. ...
3
The new mission is going to be called NEOSM for NEO Surveillance Mission according to Twitter messages from committee members (example) or this Arstechnica article - which isn't a lot to go on. More information may emerge if the presentation slide decks are released on the Planetary Science Advisory Committee website after the meeting concludes on 2019-09-24....
3
Moonport says
4 firing rooms, one for each of the high bays in the VAB.
but
The original plan called for four rectangular firing rooms, 28 by 46
meters; one was never to be equipped.
i.e. to support the original Apollo flight rate projections.
The firing rooms were used for prelaunch checkout of the vehicles so they could have had several in ...
1
During the Apollo program, NASA headquarters asked AT&T for technical advice. They created the subsidiary Bellcomm specifically for this task, hiring staff from Bell Laboratories as well as outside experts. At the time, NASA's centers (Houston, Huntsville, Kennedy) were focused on spacecraft and facility development, so many of the "big picture" ...
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