An Interim Report on NASA's Draft Space Technology Roadmaps
An Interim Report on NASA's Draft Space Technology Roadmaps

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2011-10-18

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13: 0309218780

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For the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to achieve many of its space science and exploration goals over the next several decades, dramatic advances in space technology will be necessary. NASA has developed a set of 14 draft roadmaps to guide the development of such technologies under the leadership of the NASA Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT). Each roadmap focuses on a particular technology area. OCT requested that the National Research Council conduct a study to review the draft roadmaps, gather and assess relevant community input, and make recommendations and suggest priorities to inform NASA's decisions as it finalizes its roadmaps. The success of OCT's technology development program is essential, because technological breakthroughs have long been the foundation of NASA's successes, from its earliest days, to the Apollo program, to a vast array of space science missions and the International Space Station. An Interim Report of NASA's Technology Roadmap identifies some gaps in the technologies included in the individual roadmaps. The report suggests that the effectiveness of the NASA space technology program can be enhanced by employing proven management practices and principles including increasing program stability, addressing facility issues, and supporting adequate flight tests of new technologies. This interim report provides several additional observations that will be expanded on in the final report to be released in 2012.

Envisioning the Data Science Discipline
Envisioning the Data Science Discipline

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2018-03-05

Total Pages: 69

ISBN-13: 0309465052

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The need to manage, analyze, and extract knowledge from data is pervasive across industry, government, and academia. Scientists, engineers, and executives routinely encounter enormous volumes of data, and new techniques and tools are emerging to create knowledge out of these data, some of them capable of working with real-time streams of data. The nation's ability to make use of these data depends on the availability of an educated workforce with necessary expertise. With these new capabilities have come novel ethical challenges regarding the effectiveness and appropriateness of broad applications of data analyses. The field of data science has emerged to address the proliferation of data and the need to manage and understand it. Data science is a hybrid of multiple disciplines and skill sets, draws on diverse fields (including computer science, statistics, and mathematics), encompasses topics in ethics and privacy, and depends on specifics of the domains to which it is applied. Fueled by the explosion of data, jobs that involve data science have proliferated and an array of data science programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels have been established. Nevertheless, data science is still in its infancy, which suggests the importance of envisioning what the field might look like in the future and what key steps can be taken now to move data science education in that direction. This study will set forth a vision for the emerging discipline of data science at the undergraduate level. This interim report lays out some of the information and comments that the committee has gathered and heard during the first half of its study, offers perspectives on the current state of data science education, and poses some questions that may shape the way data science education evolves in the future. The study will conclude in early 2018 with a final report that lays out a vision for future data science education.

U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike
U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2008-12-08

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 0309185882

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Conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) is a military option under consideration by the U.S. Department of Defense. This book, the final report from the National Research Council’s Committee on Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability, analyzes proposed CPGS systems and evaluates the potential role CPGS could play in U.S. defense. U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike provides near-, mid-, and long-term recommendations for possible CPGS development, addressing the following questions: Does the United States need CPGS capabilities? What are the alternative CPGS systems, and how effective are they likely to be if proposed capabilities are achieved? What would be the implications of alternative CPGS systems for stability, doctrine, decision making, and operations? What nuclear ambiguity concerns arise from CPGS, and how might they be mitigated? What arms control issues arise with CPGS systems, and how might they be resolved? Should the United States proceed with research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) of the Conventional Trident Modification (CTM) program5 and, ultimately, with CTM production and deployment? Should the United States proceed with the development and testing of alternative CPGS systems beyond CTM?