Calling All Innovators



NASA's proposed FY 2011 budget could include new opportunities
for academic collaborations in technology research and development.








One element of the NASA's proposed Space Technology Program (STP) -
the Early State Innovation element - will be of particular interest to
the academic community. If the President’s budget is approved, it may
well be that a response to the NASA STP opportunity will be a very
rapid-turnaround activity for FY11. (Please note that the President’s
budget proposal has yet to be approved and, even if approved, the
details of the NASA STP plan are subject to change.)

There are two components of the Early Stage Innovation element that
deserve highlighting. First, the NASA Office of the Chief
Technologist plans to sponsor as many as 500 U.S. citizen graduate
student fellowships. The details are still being worked at NASA
headquarters, but indications are that they will encourage high
risk/high payoff innovative research in which the student will perform
their research at their home university with their faculty advisor and
will additionally be matched with a technically relevant researcher at a
NASA facility. This new program looks very exciting with emerging plans
that include summer internships at one or more NASA centers, dedicated
sessions at aerospace conferences, and web technologies to facilitate
interactions between all students and mentors. We anticipate that the
fellowship applications will be student initiated and will specify the
NASA Center and mentor. This is a tremendous opportunity for graduate
students to receive research fellowships to work on NASA-related
research and interact closely with researchers at JPL and other NASA
Centers.

Second, the Early Stage Innovation element also plans to fund
research efforts with funding of several hundred thousand per year and
several years in duration. Given the focus on low technology readiness
level (TRL) technologies, collaboration between JPL and other NASA
Centers with university researchers is a good strategy to consider with
benefits to both sides.

You can find more information about this proposed NASA Space
Technology Program by downloading a presentation by NASA Chief
Technologist Dr. R. Braun entitled "NASA
innovation and Technology Preliminary Planning". The NASA
Space Technology FY2011 budget estimate also contains information
about the Early Stage Innovation element, as well as the other elements
in this proposed program. The components mentioned above are on page 6
of this document.

If you would like to be on the mailing list for periodic updates as
this new program emerges, please send an email to Paula Grunthaner or
visit the Strategic University
Partnerships (SURP) website.