NASA's OFFICE OF ADVANCED RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY: INTRODUCTION AND EVALUATION OF TRANSITIONS, 1966 TO 1973

摘要

From the beginnings of NASA until the past year (2005), there has always been one organization within the Agency with overall leadership responsibility for advanced technology R&D to enable more ambitious future NASA, other government and private sector space mission applications. For most of NASA's history, the responsible organization was the Office of Advanced Research and Technology (OART) - later renamed as the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST). However there has never been a history written of this remarkable organization. This paper provides an initial overview of the history of advanced space technology research and development at NASA, with particular emphasis on OART-and its successor OAST-during the later 1960s and the early 1970s. The paper examines key programmatic challenges during these years and will trace the responses of the OART organization, and of NASA to those challenges. The paper also examines the strategic context for the program, including national policies, NASA agency-level planning, and relevant budget considerations.