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Caltech Space Studies Institute

By catdynamics on January 23, 2008.

Keck gives Caltech $24 million to fund a new space studies institute.

$3 million per year for 8 years from Keck -

"...Caltech has received an eight-year, $24-million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to establish a space studies institute dedicated to developing a new generation of space missions and research.

The W.M. Keck Institute for Space Studies will consider such sweeping questions as how the universe began, its ultimate fate and the likelihood that life exists elsewhere in the cosmos, Caltech said Tuesday.

Each year, the institute will adopt one or more of these themes and explore them through symposiums, in-depth research and the development of new technologies for future space missions in conjunction with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which the university manages for NASA..."

Tom Prince will be in charge.
Intereeeeesting...

At that level we're talking mission concepts and pre-phase A development of instruments, but this is still an interesting niche to formally stake out, could give them a lot of leverage for future missions.
Er, if there are any future missions.
Er, ESA and JAXA missions, yeah, that's the ticket.

Ok. all joking aside, this gives Caltech/JPL an interesting capacity - they can do some long term hedging, ride out short term fluctuations in NASA pre-phase A and phase A budgets, and preserve core competencies. That funding is enough to keep 2-3 small groups together for several years, and continue working on blue sky or long term options for mission concepts - instead of breaking the teams up, losing half of the people to Europe or defence industry and have the other half underemployed doing power point studies for the latest HQ fads.
That is a good thing to have, and a major leverage for the Institute.

I suspect I know some of the groups that may rotate under the Space Studies Institute umbrella for a year or three while mission plans are reworked.

And, hey, they could hold some kick-ass meetings.

Tags
astro

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WOW. You're right, this should give them some breathing room for supporting personnel while NASA et al go through their various paroxysms. I can guess that some JPL/Caltech folks I know can rest a little easier ...