<p>From the Houston Chronicle:</p>
<p>Seeking to play a larger role in NASA's future, Rice University has tapped astronaut Mike Massimino to lead its space institute for the next year.</p>
<p>The university wants to not only provide more opportunities for students to work at Johnson Space Center, but also wants to help design a sustainable future for NASA in Houston.</p>
<p>In landing Massimino, who flew on the last two Hubble Space Telescope repair missions and is one of the space agency's most visible astronauts, the space institute will have someone who can bind the two institutions closer together.</p>
<p>"From the perspective of the students at Rice, I want them to know they're not that far from NASA," Massimino said.</p>
<p>"For the graduate students and professors doing research at Rice, we want to foster better communication and cooperation with NASA. From the NASA side, for the last few years, Johnson Space Center has been very interested in working with industry and universities."</p>
<p>That's partly because Johnson Space Center's future has become less certain with the end of the space shuttle program and questions about NASA's plan to build an Orion spacecraft and heavy launch system.</p>
<p>In the last two years the space center has shed 3,500 jobs and its budget has dropped $1 billion, to $5 billion annually. More than ever the space center has been reaching out to the Houston community.</p>