Issues Affecting the Future of the U.S. Space Science and Engineering Workforce

Issues Affecting the Future of the U.S. Space Science and Engineering Workforce
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2006-07-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309102170

In January 2006, the President announced a new civilian space policy focusing on exploration. As part of its preparations to implement that policy, NASA asked the NRC to explore long-range science and technology workforce needs to achieve the space exploration vision, identify obstacles to filling those needs, and put forward solutions to those obstacles. As part of the study, the NRC held a workshop to identify important factors affecting NASA's future workforce and its capacity to implement the exploration vision. This interim report presents a summary of the highlights of that workshop and an initial set of findings. The report provides a review of the workforce implications of NASA's plans, an assessment of science and technology workforce demographics, an analysis of factors affecting the aerospace workforce for both NASA and the relevant aerospace industry, and preliminary findings and recommendations. A final report is scheduled for completion in early 2007.

Beyond Horizons

Beyond Horizons
Author: David N. Spires
Publisher:
Total Pages: 432
Release: 1997
Genre: Astronautics, Military
ISBN:

NASA and the Space Industry

NASA and the Space Industry
Author: Joan Lisa Bromberg
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2000-11-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780801865329

Few federal agencies have more extensive ties to the private sector than NASA. NASA's relationships with its many aerospace industry suppliers of rocket engines, computers, electronics, gauges, valves, O-rings, and other materials have often been described as "partnerships." These have produced a few memorable catastrophes, but mostly technical achievements of the highest order. Until now, no one has written extensively about them. In NASA and the Space Industry, Joan Lisa Bromberg explores how NASA's relationship with the private sector developed and how it works. She outlines the various kinds of expertise public and private sectors brought to the tasks NASA took on, describing how this division of labor changed over time. She explains why NASA sometimes encouraged and sometimes thwarted the privatization of space projects and describes the agency's role in the rise of such new space industries as launch vehicles and communications satellites.