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NASA said the new technology developed in the Space Technology Mission Directorate will benefit aerospace and government industries in the U.S.

NASA has created a new program that will enable greater development in space technology for the future called the Space Technology Mission Directorate.

The Space Technology Mission Directorate aims to develop new, advanced technologies for both current and future NASA missions. NASA Associate Administrator Michael Gazarik will lead the new program.

"A robust technology development program is vital to reaching new heights in space -- and sending American astronauts to new destinations like an asteroid and Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "A top priority of NASA is to invest in cross-cutting, transformational technologies. We focus on collaboration with industry and academia that advances our nation's space exploration and science goals while maintaining America's competitive edge in the new innovation economy."

The Space Technology Mission Directorate is expected to take a portfolio type of approach that will cover many discipline areas and levels of technology. The research and development will take place in NASA centers, industry, academia and government/international offices.

NASA said the new technology developed in the Space Technology Mission Directorate will benefit aerospace and government industries in the U.S., and will "address national needs."

Source: NASA

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RE: Fix this planet first
By CaedenV on 2/26/2013 3:47:16 PM , Rating: 1
What better way to understand how to fix our planet than to get off of it? There is not an honest scientist out there that actually knows all of the whats and hows of climate change. Sure, we know that humans are involved, but just because putting carbon in the air caused it, does not mean that removing carbon will fix anything. The climate HAS changed, and the systems that kept the old climate 'stable' may simply not exist anymore.

Change is not always bad, or always good. Change is simply different. Similarly, old systems are not always the best systems, nor are they the worst, they are simply how things use to work. In fact we don't even know if we CAN go back as the changes which have happened may have perminately broken or weakened elements that kept the old system stable. Different organizms thrive better in different systems, and mankind is not going to know what the 'best' picture looks like until we have the real estate to do truly large scale biome or teraforming projects where we can play with the different settings of life and get a feel for how the environment actually reacts to our decisions. The only way to really do this is to get off of our planet ASAP and really learn how closed self-sustaining systems work.

As for fixing the issues related to age and disease, there are plenty of people working on that already. These are not problems where you throw funding at it until the problem is solved. Large portions of the scientific community are dedicated towards removing disease, and making the aging process more graceful (or people like Kirzweil are making good progress at stopping and reversing the process entirely). It is not a brute force thing, it is all about trying things over time and seeing how they work, there is no fast answer.

RE: Fix this planet first
By deksman2 on 2/27/2013 5:09:26 AM , Rating: 2
Getting off Earth with most of Humanity in a present mental state (consume, discard, unsustainable methods of production, and 0 regard for the environment [let alone each other]) is not exactly what I would call to be 'better'.

We had the ability to fix worlds problems for over 100 years now.
Today, it would take less than 10 years with the technology and resources at our disposal.

Injecting science and technology directly into the social system could easily solve our problems... however, that alone isn't enough.
You need to educate people first and foremost and cannot expect to simply throw people from one system into the other, because you will end up with same problems (because no one was exposed to relevant general education, the approach to how the new system works, or taught people on sustainability, etc.).


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