Archive for 2009
September 17, 2009
Posted by Max Bernstein at 2009/09/17 14:25:00 US/Eastern
The grant solicitations page has a number of new items, including: opportunities for high end computing time due September 20th and a link to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Multi-Cycle Treasury (MCT) Programs Call for Proposals, which are due in mid November. As always, we have links for our omnibus ROSES solicitation: Tables of individual programs in order of due date and by subject area, and a link to our list of amendments, clarifications, and corrections to ROSES 2009 all in one place, including with a convenient RSS feed, so you always know when ROSES is changing. We are now up to Amendment 20.
We are essentially done with selections from ROSES 2008 programs. The selection statistics for each program and links to abstracts of selected proposals have posted on the ROSES 08 selections page, and all of the selection statistics can be downloaded as an xl spreadsheet or pdf from the statistics page. There you will also find the latest plot of the time that elapsed between proposal submission and selection. It shows that, yet again, thanks to the hard work of the program officers, we diminished the average time from proposal submission to selection. The longest delays were primarily caused by a change to a new program officer. Selections have been announced for the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowships for graduate students and those can also be found at the grant stats page or by following this direct link to the PDF at NSPIRES.
As always, some updates have been made to the program officer list and FAQs, and small changes have been made to many other pages such as the Advisory Committees page.
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July 27, 2009
Posted by ckaiser at 2009/07/27 15:20:00 US/Eastern
An important change has come to NSPIRES, the web page through which proposals are submitted. For proposals due on or after August 8, 2009 all team members (e.g., Co-Investigators, Collaborators, etc.) MUST officially agree to participate on a proposal online through the NSPIRES web page. If a team member is invited to participate, but they don't confirm their participation online, then the PI will have to remove them for the proposal to be submitted. I have created a walk through of this online participation process with screen captures because NSPIRES is not always totally intuitive. You can download this guide as a 
PDF file here. This and other similar guides will appear in the future on the bottom of my NSPIRES hints web page.
As always we maintain a list of the relevant open calls for proposals on the solicitations web page, which currently includes not only the ongoing solicitations such as our omnibus solicitation, ROSES-2009, but also links to other ones such as the Office of Education's Competitive Program for Science Museums and Planetariums (CP4SMP), Community Announcements such as the one regarding Draft Discovery AO, requests for information, and a list of planned future solicitations.
We track the changes to ROSES 2009, with our amendments, clarifications, and corrections web page and there is also an RSS feed as well. Since I have last posted to this what’s new list we have released at least a half dozen such changes to ROSES, including Amendment 11, which presents the final text for B.6 Living With a Star Targeted Research and Technology, and announces that B.7 Strategic Capability proposals will not be solicited this year.
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May 15, 2009
Posted by Max Bernstein at 2009/05/15
A number of things have been updated on the grant solicitations page, including: a community announcement regarding the draft Discovery AO and a call, due May 31, from Randolph Kirk of the USGS regarding the Planetary Photogrammetry Guest Facility at the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona. As always there is a link to our list of amendments, clarifications, and corrections to ROSES 2009 all in one place, including with a convenient RSS feed, so you always know when ROSES is changing including. In the past month we have posted: Amendment 5: Expanding eligibility to propose to Appendices E.5 and E.6: Supplemental Outreach and Education Awards, and a clarification to B.9 Causes and Consequences of the Minimum of Solar Cycle 24.
Selections from a whole slew of ROSES 2008 programs have been made and the numbers have posted on the ROSES 08 selections list, including: Planetary Mission Data Analysis (PMDAP), Planetary Instrument Definition and Development (PIDD), Moon and Mars Analog Missions Activities (MMAMA), Guest Investigator Studies with C/NOFS, Astrobiology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology (EXOB), Earth Science Applications Feasibility Studies, Decision Support through Earth Science Research Results, Lunar and Planetary Science US PI (Salmon H1), Living With a Star: both Strategic Capability and Targeted Research and Technology, and an additional selection was made for Swift Guest Investigator - Cycle 5.
Updates were made to the Astrophysics and Planetary Division Corners, a few new articles were posted on the science matters page, and small updates were made to the list of program officers, the student fellowships page, and others.
Last, but certainly not least, the grant stats spreadsheets with selection data for can be downloaded in PDF or excel format from the grant stats page.
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April 13th, 2009
Posted by Max Bernstein at 2009/04/13
What’s new on the SARA web page?
Our new shorter, easier to remember URL, http://sara.nasa.gov is now working.
In addition to hypertext links to ROSES 2009 and associated tables, the grant solicitations page now has a list of amendments, clarifications, and corrections to ROSES 2009 all in one place, with a convenient RSS feed, so you always know when ROSES is changing. Recent amendments include #4: changes to program element A.3 Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry, and #3: removing the option to submit via Grants.gov for program elements with due dates after June 27th. The solicitations page also has a link to the New Frontiers AO, and a PDF of planned future SMD solicitations.
Selections from a number of ROSES 2008 programs have been made and the numbers have posted on the ROSES 08 selections list. In many cases these include a link to the PDF of the abstracts of the selected projects, including Applied Information Systems Research (AISR), Modeling, Analysis & Prediction (MAP), and many others. Of course the grant stats spreadsheets with selection data for can be downloaded in PDF or excel format from the grant stats page. In addition, the grant stats page now sports plots of grades vs. who got selected for a sample of 1,597 proposals (20 ROSES program elements) reviewed in 2007 and 2008. Historically, the Science Mission Directorate has not reported on selection rates as a function of peer reviewed scores. We are very pleased to share this data with you!
As always, a number of other changes have been made to various other things on the SARA web page, including: dozens of updates to the list of program officer contact information, an article about NASA hiring younger civil servants was posted on the science matters page, and the Advisory Committees page has a link to the NRC “Mission-Enabling Activities” study.
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February 13th, 2009
Posted by Max Bernstein at 2009/02/13 13:22:08.640 US/Eastern
Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2009 has been released.
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January 30th, 2009
Posted by Max Bernstein at 2009/02/12 13:54:06.542 US/Eastern
Selections for a dozen programs from ROSES 2008 were announced since the last SARA letter in December, and summary information for these are posted as html on the Grant Stats page. In addition, selections were announced for the final two programs from ROSES 2007 (Energy and Water Cycle Study and Terrestrial Hydrology), and these can be found at the archive page where we have grant stats from ROSES 2007. These and all prior selections can be found on the updated spreadsheets of ROSES selection information, which are downloadable in Excel and PDF format.
We are done selecting proposals submitted in response to ROSES 2007, and the plots of the time that elapsed between submission and selection, both by program and by proposal, show that selections were made much faster than in prior years, though we handled more proposals than ever before.
The grant solicitations page has been updated, including the new deadline for our graduate student fellowship program, NASA's Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF).
As always, a number of updates have been made to the information on the SARA web page, including the list of program officer contact information, and we have posted a FAQ with the latest information on how ROSES 2009 will differ from prior years.
Finally, we have posted, with permission, a summary of Greg Davidson’s latest Science News metric on the science matters page. This annual measure of NASA contributions to worldwide scientific discovery reports that “NASA’s 9.2% contribution to worldwide scientific discoveries in 2008 is the fourth-highest in the 36 years covered by the Science News metric” and that “NASA’s non-mission science produced 1.3% of world-wide science.”
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January 27th 2009
Posted by Max Bernstein at 2009/02/12 13:51:42.998 US/Eastern
NASA Reponse to Bloggers on Keck Observatory Future Funding
The FY09 budget plan, prepared under former Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Alan Stern, reflects only the current 5-year agreement in place for the Keck Observatory. That plan ends funding in 2012. NASA officials will consider continued funding for projects such as Keck when they meet in the coming months to discuss the next 5-year planning cycle. This is part of the normal annual federal budget deliberations. Given the success and work of the observatory, it is expected funding will continue. In fact, the science directorate, under the current leadership of Ed Weiler, finished renewing a five-year cooperative agreement to continue its support of Keck based on recommendations from the science community during last year's NAC-subcommittee meetings.
NASA highly values its investment in Keck as a strategic research tool that enhances the scientific return of NASA missions. The observatory provides unique capabilities for making important scientific observations that affect future mission planning. One example is finding methane in the Martian atmosphere that was recently announced.
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December 12th 2008
Posted by Max Bernstein at 2009/02/12 13:41:13.563 US/Eastern
Selections for a half dozen programs from ROSES 2008 were announced in the past month, as well as the Earth Surface and Interior program from ROSES 2007, and summary information for these are posted on the Grant Stats page, where you will also find updated spreadsheets (of selection information from ROSES 2007 & 2008) downloadable in Excel and PDF format.
The Grant Solicitations page has updated to list of the recent Amendments to ROSES 2008 including #32 for MAAMA, a request for information regarding Instruments for U.S. ILN Lunar Missions, a draft New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity, and an updated downloadable PDF of the future solicitations.
Updates have been made to the program officer’s list, including new contact information for Stephanie Stockman who is now here at NASA HQ, and updated contact info for the lunar programs, since Dr. Kelly Snook has been replaced by Dr. Jennifer Heldmann.
Some new articles were posted on the science matters page including speculation as to the next administrator, alternatives to the Vision for Space Exploration, and manned asteroid missions as faster springboard to Mars.
Two new science papers have been added to the highlights page: one on a result from the Aqua satellite and the other from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Finally, the events calendar has been updated, and you can view the talks by Max Bernstein and Jim Green from NASA night online.
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