NASA .. N^SA .. NaSA .. N.SA .. Shrinking NASA Budget.

Heard Monday morning (3/7) on NPR, the latest federal budget proposes to slash the Aeronautics portion of the NASA budget by 1/3 over the next two years, and the aeronautical research departments within NASA are facing significant layoffs.

The Aeronautics part of NASA may not be the most visible, but it is this work that is pushing forward development in the many areas of aviation safety. A great example is the new automated PIREP system as reported on AvWeb

There was too much to list from a recent annual report, but research areas included:

• Researching crew performance and fatigue
• Computer based training for Professional and Private Pilots
• Icing on airframe performance including tailplane icing.
• Improved cockpit availability of weather and navigation
• Advanced flight control systems
• Aviation Safety (a.k.a. the NASA ASRS System)
• … and many others including the environment, noise and emissions, efficiency etc.

From what I could gather from the report, NASA will be focusing on the Space component and will put a much reduced budget for Aeronautical research "Out to bid", among the remaining research centers. One of the quotes was that "Experts in the business community believe that aviation is a mature industry, and development should be funded by "Corporate Research" This potentially slashes Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and Langley Virginia research centers, among others.

-- GeorgeClark - 26 Nov 2006