Jeff has been involved in aerospace journalism since the mid 1990s. Prior to joining Aviation Week, Jeff served as managing editor of Launchspace magazine and the International Space Industry Report. He has been the editor and chief of Aviation Week's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report since 2007 and has been a regular contributor to Aviation Week magazine. He received his B.A. from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
A National Research Council panel is calling on NASA to reestablish an organization like the now-defunct NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) that would nurture “visionary, far-reaching” ideas with the potential to revolutionize how the space agency does business. The original NIAC was formed in 1998, and received $36.2 million in NASA funding until the agency terminated it in 2007. “The committee found the NIAC program to be effective in achieving its mission and accomplishing its stated goals,” the panel says in its report.
NASA has not been properly funded to meet the goal set by Congress that it discover 90 percent of all near-Earth objects (NEOs) 140 meters in diameter or larger by 2020, according to a National Research Council (NRC) panel.
A new group has formed under the leadership of former NASA science directorate chief Alan Stern to try to further the research and education potential of the current crop of suborbital reusable launch vehicles under development by industry. “The innovative vehicles being developed by a wide range of commercial suborbital companies—including Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace—represent valuable new capability for scientists, engineers and educators,” Stern says.
