May 9 2007
From The Space Library
NASA announced its selection of four research teams, which would receive five-year grants valued at approximately US$7 million per team. The teams would become new members of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI), increasing the number of the NAI’s members to 16. The University of Wisconsin team proposed to study organic and mineralogical environments and signatures of life on Earth and on other planets, focusing on technologies for detecting microbial life within rock chemistry. The team from the California Institute of Technology planned to extend the research it had conducted at NAI during 2001-2006, using the Virtual Planetary Laboratory that the team had developed to explore the habitability and biosignatures of extrasolar Earth-like planets. The Montana State University team would investigate the role of iron-sulfide compounds in the transition from the nonliving to the living world, supporting NASA’s mission to investigate prebiotic chemistry and the development of signatures for terrestrial and extraterrestrial life. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology planned to investigate requirements for the development of multicellular life in Earth’s ancient past, concentrating on organic biosignatures preserved in the rock record and on the state of Earth’s early atmosphere.
NASA, “NASA Selects New Members of Astrobiology Institute,” new release 07-108, 9 May 2007, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/may/HQ_07108_Astrobiology_Grants.html (accessed 24 March 2010).
NASA announced that it had signed a MOU with the FAA to develop U.S. students’ skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The partnership, which complemented and supported each organization’s educational goals, would offer a broad range of cooperative outreach activities, with the initial focus on NASA’s curriculum Smart Skies. An online air traffic–control simulator for students in fifth through ninth grades, Smart Skies provided a fun way to learn mathematics and problem solving, as well as skills essential to air traffic control. The program would also provide students with the opportunity to learn about high-technology careers related to aviation. NASA had developed the Smart Skies program with help from air traffic controllers at the FAA’s Oakland, California, facility.
NASA, “NASA and FAA Team To Encourage Aviation and Space Careers,” news release 07-107, 9 May 2007, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/may/HQ_07107_NASA_FAA_MOU.html (accessed 24 March 2010).
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