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Whats Next for NASA? The end of the Space Shuttle program marks the end of an era for NASA, but not the end of NASA’s ambitious goals for space exploration, aeronautics, science, and technology.

By Vania Neves   We make many decisions every day. Should we wait patiently for the green light to cross the street or risk an accident? Should we buy something we want or save money for the future?

By Andrew Cheng   NEAR was the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, the first launch in NASA’s Discovery Program—and the first dedicated asteroid mission. The plan was to insert the vehicle into orbit around Eros, one of the larger near-Earth asteroids. Not everything went according to plan.

By Jon Verville, Patricia Jones, and Mark Rober   How Does a Wiki Work? The NASA workforce is hungry for ways to improve collaboration. Wikis can help—and are helping—to do that.

By Glen A. Robertson One hundred years from now there will exist technologies that today’s science fiction writers have yet to dream of. Many of these technologies will come from theories, ideas, and concepts that are laughable today.

By Haley Stephenson   Opening the International Space Station under normal circumstances is challenging. Doing it during the third-costliest hurricane to hit the United States is another story.

By Don Cohen   Currently a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jeffrey Hoffman flew on five shuttle missions as a NASA astronaut, including the first Hubble repair mission. He also served as NASA’s European representative for four years. Don Cohen spoke with him at his […]

By Danielle Wood, Heidi Davidz, Donna Rhodes, and Maria So   How do NASA’s systems engineers develop the skills they need to think effectively about the complex systems they develop? How do people outside formal systems-engineering roles improve their ability to see connections across subsystem and organizational boundaries? What can NASA management do to facilitate […]

By Jim Hodges   The first time Mark Sirangelo saw the model on which Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser is based, in 2005, it was in the corner of a huge hangar at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “It was covered with dust and other things I’d probably better not mention,” said Sirangelo, who […]