NASA: New Fellowship Program Will Make Space Agency Biggest in Graduate Aid

D. S. Greenberg
1963 Science  
Administration has set forth its plans for supporting graduate science education, and, as befits an organization that is reaching for the moon, NASA is not thinking small. It is on its way to providing more graduate fellowships than are now offered by any other government agency, and the accompanying stipends are going to be about the most attractive 'on the federal marketplace. The program, which had been in preparation for the past year, was -announced shortly after a presidential
more » ... d a series of recommendations calling for expanded federal support of graduate education in engineering, mathematics, and the physical sciences. In many respects the NASA program falls in line with the panel's recommendations, but there are discrepancies, and these raise the question of what is being done about the much-lamented but so far untouched disarray in federal support of graduate science studies. Several persons associated with the preparation of the presidential study, which was reported in this space on 21 December, displayed -a grudging admiration for-NASA's big and bold move into, the, field. But they point out that what is good for the space agency is not necessarily good for the nation where overall manpower needs are concerned, and that the White House has yet to take hold of the manpower issue and lay down guidelines that will bring some coherence into a multitude of federal support programs that have just been allowed to grow, at the discretion of various agencies. The panel report specifically referred to this problem when it stated that "immediate assignment of responsibility for leadership and coordination is needed to assure prompt realization of [graduate] program aims, consistency in administrative arrangements with 4 JANUARY 1963
doi:10.1126/science.139.3549.23 pmid:17752017 fatcat:r72cgqlvp5cslo6nfpxdotcssi