Carolyn Townsend               September 21, 2000
Headquarters, Washington, DC
(Phone: 202/358-1781)

RELEASE:  00-144

NASA ANNOUNCES RESEARCH GRANTS
IN MICROGRAVITY COMBUSTION SCIENCE

     NASA has selected 28 researchers to receive grants 
totaling approximately $10 million over four years to conduct 
microgravity combustion research on Earth and in space. This 
research will seek knowledge leading to innovative 
applications in space-based life support systems, crew safety 
and Earth-based energy conversion. 

Sponsored by NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Science 
and Applications, the research offers investigators the 
advantage of a low-gravity environment to enhance 
understanding of fundamental physical and chemical processes 
associated with combustion. 

Researchers will use NASA's microgravity research facilities 
such as drop-tubes, drop-towers, aircraft flying parabolic 
trajectories, and sounding rockets. Flight-definition 
investigators will work toward experiments on a space-flight 
test bed, such as the International Space Station and Space 
Shuttle. 

Twenty-six of the grants are to conduct ground-based research, 
while the remaining two are flight-definition efforts. Four of 
these grants are to continue work currently being funded by 
NASA, but the majority (24) are new research efforts.

NASA received 119 proposals in response to its research 
announcement in this area. The proposals were all peer-
reviewed by scientific and technical experts from academia, 
government and industry. In addition, those proposals selected 
for flight definition were reviewed for engineering 
feasibility by a team from NASA's Glenn Research Center, 
Cleveland, OH. 

A list of awardees (by state), their institutions, and 
research titles can be found on the Internet at:  
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-144a.txt 

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