Tapping America's Potential

To stay up-to-date on the latest TAP news, subscribe to our RSS feed by clicking on the icon (left) and copying the URL into your RSS reader.

News Coverage November 2007

September 25, 2007 – New York Times – “New Horizons Beckon, Inspiring Vision if Not Certainty”
Fifty years of spaceflight have taken people to the Moon and have sent unmanned vehicles zipping to the fringes of the solar system. What could the next 50 years bring? Much more, or potentially not much more. Government-financed space travel could stall in the face of America’s growing aversion to risk and a kind of orbital ennui. NASA has, after all, already tried for more than a decade to develop follow-on vehicles to the flawed space shuttle and is in the process of trying again. Private enterprise is stepping up, but the industry is still fragile. Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, said in an interview that he was confident of one thing for the foreseeable future: “We’re going to have a space program.”

September 25, 2007 – New York Times – “When Science Suddenly Mattered, in Space and in Class”
For many, Sputnik was proof that American education, particularly in science, had fallen behind. Scientists and engineers warned Congress that the cold war was being fought with slide rules, not rifles. In response Congress passed the National Defense Education Act in 1958, providing, among other things, college scholarships and other help for aspiring scientists, engineers and mathematicians. Meanwhile, some of the nation’s eminent scientists were collaborating on new ways to teach high school physics, biology and chemistry.

September 25, 2007 – New York Times – “New Challengers Emerge, Threatening to Take the Lead”
In March, during an otherwise routine budget hearing, Michael D. Griffin, the NASA administrator, warned members of Congress that China’s aggressive space program could “easily” put humans on the Moon before American astronauts are able return to the lunar surface under the space agency’s proposed Moon-Mars project. The China card can be a strong selling point on Capitol Hill, and Mr. Griffin, trying to finance an ambitious human spaceflight program with Mars as the ultimate goal, plays it as well as anyone. This is America’s great space-age paranoia: that the United States has frittered away 35 years of space superiority, and a new generation of rivals is about to shove it into second place.

September 19, 2007 – BusinessWeek - “One Giant Leap for Entrepreneurs”
This November, Carnegie Mellon robotics professor William "Red " Whittaker and his team's radar- and laser-equipped Chevy Tahoe are top contenders for the $2 million first prize in the DARPA Urban Challenge—a series of races with driverless vehicles sponsored by small companies and universities. The Defense Dept. has already held similar challenges twice in the past three years in hopes of drumming up ideas for sophisticated, unmanned vehicles for use in urban combat zones. Soon another government agency will be eyeing Red's robots: NASA.

September 2, 2007 - Washington Times – “New Engineering Program a Boon”
The Maryland Higher Education Commission approved a new engineering program for the University of Maryland at Eastern Shore. The program was approved at a time when alarms have been raised nationally about the scarcity of black engineers. "There's a lack of not just African-Americans, but Americans in general going into STEM fields,” said Carl B. Mack, director of the National Society of Black Engineers. Administrators at the university say the new program, the first on Maryland's Eastern Shore, will prove a boon for economic development in the area and the development of high-tech industries.

Use the links below to read more news about TAP2015:

top