Renee Juhans
Headquarters, Washington, DC                 January 5, 2000
(Phone:  202/358-1712)

RELEASE:  00-2

NASA ANNOUNCES RESEARCH GRANTS 
IN MICROGRAVITY FLUID PHYSICS

     NASA has selected 75 researchers to receive grants totaling 
approximately $25 million over four years to conduct microgravity 
fluid physics research on Earth and in space.  This research is 
focused on obtaining beneficial applications in space-based health 
and life support systems, and in earth-based systems. 

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

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

     Sixty-one of the grants are to conduct ground-based research, 
while the remaining 14 are flight-definition efforts.  Twenty-nine 
of these grants are for continuation of work currently being 
funded by NASA, but the majority -- 46 -- represent new research 
efforts.

     NASA received 297 proposals in response to its research 
announcement in this area.  These 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 in terms of 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/2000/00-002a.txt

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