NASA is seeking public input on how to prioritize nearly 200 topics in space technology to improve its limited funding investment. The agency has published a list of 187 “technology gaps,” or issues where existing technology requires further development to meet NASA’s future needs. There are deficiencies in 20 areas, from space transportation to life support, from energy to heat management.

Through the site, the agency invites people to review the listed technologies and rate their importance by May 13. NASA will use this information to prioritize these technologies to address gaps in future investments.

This is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Management (STMD) effort to provide a more rigorous approach to supporting technology development. “NASA has gotten into a battle rhythm with our stakeholders; we’re setting our priorities initially around the activities we do rather than around the problem space, the problems we solve,” Kurt said. “Spuds” Vogel, NASA’s deputy administrator for space technology, at the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium meeting April 23.

He said the old approach risked turning NASA’s space technology program into a “hobby shop” beholden to the whims of politicians. “Wrong focus.”

He argued that by prioritizing technology gaps, NASA could better invest its funds on the most critical ones. “We’re at the same level of effort. This means we don’t have the budget to address all of these issues at once, so we need to prioritize the limited budget we have to address the issues that matter most to our stakeholders.”

Through this process, people will be able to evaluate the significance of some or all of the technological flaws that NASA has identified. They may also list technologies they believe should be included or identify weaknesses they believe have already been addressed.

NASA will use data from this process and individual internal agency efforts to develop a ranked list of technologies. It should be ready by this summer, Alesin Lowry, STMD’s director of strategic planning and integration, said in a separate presentation at the April 24 meeting.

While NASA will not release individual data, it plans to reveal how various stakeholder groups in industry and academia evaluate the technologies. But Vogel emphasized that public input will be only one factor in the overall prioritization.

“It’s a tool, not a tool,” he said, describing the input as part of an “audit trail” used to connect technologies to problems. “This will affect what we do, but we will make the final decisions.”

He said that the number of vulnerabilities may change in the coming years, increasing or decreasing, depending on the inputs to this vulnerability analysis. Vogel said he expects NASA to update priorities annually. “The first year or two will be where most of the changes will occur. From now on it will become smooth and you will see it as a tool that can be used the way we would use it.”