NASA Boosts Earth Science Grants

Abstract

NASA's plan to launch a flotilla of Earth-observation satellites starting next year has sparked fears that the cost of the expensive hardware will leave little funding for researchers wanting to interpret the data. But last week, space agency officials said that, as part of a package of changes in the program—called Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE)—they have come up with significant savings that will be pumped into grants. By the year 2000, the plan would increase the number of 3-year research projects by nearly a third.