"The nature of research in space has changed," explained NASA's David Black, chief scientist for the space station and chairman of an ad hoc group that has adopted as its slogan the phrase, Quick Is Beautiful. "Fifteen or 20 years ago," Black said, "anything you could do to get detectors in space led to something important. Now we've progressed to more sophisticated, powerful and expensive payloads."
Billion-dollar spacecraft and 20-year lead times, he said, have turned participation in a major mission into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most scientists. Those constraints, he added, also impose a severe penalty for failure.
The new effort will establish criteria for the type of experiment that can be tucked into a corner of the cargo bay of the space shuttle during the construction of the space station and positioned on the station for later use. If a piece of equipment failed, it would simply be ...
