<p>April 30, 2007
NASA's Mission Demands More Spending on Graduate-Student Training, Report Says</p>
<p>NASA should increase its budget for training graduate students and give students more opportunities for hands-on research related to space exploration, if the agency hopes to fulfill its vision of sending astronauts on new missions to the moon and Mars, a new report says.</p>
<p>The report, released today by the National Research Council, comes at a time when financing for academe by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has faced new and unexpected constraints.</p>
<p>President Bush has put the highest priority on increasing spending for human space exploration. But NASA will struggle to hire and train enough scientists and engineers with the necessary skills to accomplish that goal, the report says. To ensure an adequate supply, it recommends that NASA expand programs that support graduate students.</p>
<p>The programs have contracted in recent years. For example, in 2005 NASA supported 295 fellows through its Graduate Student Researchers Program, down from 387 in 1998. Each fellowship provides $30,000 for one year with an option to renew for up to three years, the report notes, but the program is at a disadvantage compared with more-generous graduate fellowships offered by other federal agencies. The report also recommends that NASA enlarge two similar efforts, the Earth System Science Graduate Student Fellowships and the Minority University Research and Education Program.</p>
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