NASA Establishes Nationwide Lunar Science Institute

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, is looking for qualified scientists to work for its newly announced National Lunar Science Institute. The Institute will recruit scientists and technicians across the country, but will not be centralized at one of NASA's existing locations. Like a few other NASA programs, it will be administered from a central location, but the parts will be spread across the Untied States. Decentralization will likely cut costs by reducing NASA's logistics and overhead expenditures, a real advantage in times of tight budgets.

The NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) will take the lead in developing NASA's goals for future space exploration and experimentation.

It will be coordinated from Ames Research Center, at Moffet Field, California. Another decentralized program, the NASA Astrobiology Institute, is administered from the same location, and the new effort is modeled largely on the success of the Astrobiology Institute, which takes the lead in developing interdisciplinary research in that field.

The new Institute will begin operation in March of 2008, and will sharpen NASA's efforts by recruiting working groups from various technical fields. Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, expresses optimism about the new effort, claiming that it will help to unify and coordinate and develop many research efforts that are already under way. Especially exiting is the effort to return to the moon, a goal that the National Academy of Sciences supports. Such efforts will likely include robotic as well as human space flight.

Just yesterday one of the rocket boosters for the new Orion project, the Ares I, was tested. Ares I will carry humans to space. Ares II will carry payloads of supplies to the International Space Station.

The NLSI teams will look at ways that the Earth might be studied from the moon, as well as astronomical and solar study potentially from the moon.

NASA is currently looking for a Director to assume command of the initiative. The various research groups will be dispersed throughout the United States, at universities and existing research facilities. Prospective group members will face a vigorous peer review process before being recruited. Grant applications will be solicited starting next year, and be for as much as two million dollars each, lasting three years, and are renewable for up to five years.

Fifty to 100 researchers are expected to be recruited. Funding has been added for the project in the President's current budget, and will be subject to congressional approval.

Release 07-233, National Aeronautics and Space Administration