This study was initiated at the request of Congress, through a request from NASA (Appendix A). In response
to the request and to meet the ambitious schedule, in March 2009 the National Research Council established the
Committee on NASA’s Suborbital Research Capabilities. The statement of task is given in Appendix B. The committee
heard presentations from NASA staff at its first meeting, held at the Keck Center of the National Academies
in Washington, D.C., on May 20-21, 2009. It heard from research scientists, representatives of the commercial
spaceflight community, outreach specialists, and others at its second and third meetings, held at the Laboratory
for Space Astronomy and Physics, Boulder, Colorado, on August 19-20, and at the National Academies’ Beckman
Center, Irvine, California, on September 23-25, 2009. The agendas of the committee meetings are presented in
Appendix C. Biographies of the committee members are in Appendix D.
The committee thanks those who made presentations and others who provided help, advice, and comments. The
committee also thanks Linda Walker for making arrangements for and assisting at the committee’s meetings.