Terms, Abbreviations and Acronyms

Agency: For the NASA Federal Laboratory Review, NASA Headquarters and all of its subordinate organizations, including any contracted support.

ARC: Ames Research Center.

ARPA: Advanced Research Projects Agency.

ASTER: Advanced Spectral Reflectance Emission Radiometer.

ATM: Air Traffic Management.

AVIRIS: Advanced Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer.

AXAF: Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility.

BRAC: Base Realignment Closure Commission.

Cal Tech: California Institute of Technology.

Center of Excellence: A laboratory that specializes in an area of R&D and is sufficiently proficient that other organizations will rely on the Center of Excellence to perform their required work in that area of R&D.

DARO: Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office.

DFBW: Digital Fly by Wire.

DFRC: Dryden Flight Research Center.

DOC: Department of Commerce.

DoD: Department of Defense.

DOE: Department of Energy.

DOT: Department of Transportation.

Environmental Protection and Cleanup Technologies: Includes R&D for remediation and restoration, end-of-pipe controls, pollution avoidance and prevention, response to human health and ecological risks and to global environmental threats, and the science underlying these environmental issues. Also includes the activities of the Mission to Planet Earth Enterprise to understand the total Earth system and the effects of humans on the global environment.

ERAST: Environmental Research Aircraft Sensor Technology.

Facility: An assembly of equipment and physical resources and the means to operate them (utilities, personnel, and so on), which allow an organization to perform a task in a unique way (a way that could not be duplicated elsewhere without essentially duplicating the facility).

FFRDC: Federally Funded Research and Development Center.

FTE: Full-Time Equivalent.

Full-Time Equivalent: The productive efforts of one individual for 1 year. The sum of all hours worked in a year divided by the number of productive hours worked by one individual working full time for 1 year. For civil servants, 2,080 hours.

Fundamental Science: R&D activities involving the observation and reporting of basic principles, including scientific issues that arise in connection with other strategic areas, such as national security, energy supply and use, and space exploration. Includes all activities of the Scientific Research Enterprise that contribute to the creation of new scientific knowledge by exploring the Solar System and Universe beyond and by studying the space environment and its effects on biological and physical processes.

FY: Fiscal Year.

GAO: General Accounting Office.

GSFC: Goddard Space Flight Center.

HEDS: Human Exploration and Development of Space.

HIRIS: High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer.

IG: Inspector General.

Industrial Funding: A management concept under which a government receives its operating funds (or at least a major portion of them) from the users of the products and/or services the organization provides. Under this concept, if users do not value the contributions of the organization sufficiently to pay for its work, that organization will not have funds to sustain its operations.

ISSA: International Space Station Alpha.

Laboratory: All the activities and facilities at a Center and subordinate organizational units that perform or support the performance of R&D. For purposes of this review, JPL will be considered a NASA Center.

JPL: Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

JSC: Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.

KSC: John F. Kennedy Space Center

Laboratory System: The sum of all the NASA laboratories as described above, plus Headquarters activities supporting the laboratories.

LaRC: Langley Research Center.

LeRC: Lewis Research Center.

M: Million.

Missions: The product(s) or outcome(s) expected to result from the R&D activities of a laboratory.

MSFC: George C. Marshall Space Flight Center.

MTPE: Mission to Planet Earth.

NAC: NASA Advisory Council.

NACA: National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics.

NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NAS/NAE: National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering.

National Security: PRD/NSTC-1 definition for "national security" specifies R&D activities that contribute to military objectives, "including advanced conventional weapon systems; stewardship of nuclear weapons stockpile; nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and advanced conventional weapons and their delivery systems; verification of multilateral and regional arms control and nonproliferation agreements; and intelligence collection and analysis." NASA is using a broader definition of "national security" corresponding to R&D Goal 6 of the May 12, 1994, memorandum from the Director, Office of Management and Budget. This expands the definition of "national security" to include activities that support the science and technology base, support the industrial base, include technology cooperation with former adversaries, solve global problems, and so forth.

NFS: National Facilities Study.

NIH: National Institutes of Health.

NMI: NASA Management Instruction.

NRL: Naval Research Laboratory.

NRO: National Reconnaissance Office.

NSTC: National Science and Technology Council.

NSTC-1: The Presidential Review Directive that established the requirement to perform the NASA Federal Laboratory Review.

OIG: Office of Inspector General.

Operations: Those activities that perform common and recurring services for multiple Enterprises. Examples are costs associated with Space Shuttle launches and orbit activities (but not Shuttle improvements), launches using Expendable Launch Vehicles, and the maintenance and operation of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites and the Deep Space Network.

OSTP: Office of Science and Technology Policy.

R&D: Research and Development.

R&T: Research and Technology.

Roles: The scientific or technical disciplines that a particular laboratory pursues.

SBIR: Small Business Innovative Research.

SIR-C: Shuttle Imaging Radar-C.

SSC: John C. Stennis Space Center.

SSPO: Space Station Program Office.

Technologies for Competition: Technologies and activities that contribute to the competitive performance of U.S. industry and the Nation's economic growth, such as manufacturing process technologies (both generic and industry-specific), energy technologies, computer and information technologies, transportation and communication infrastructure, medical and biotechnologies, education and training technologies, and the effective diffusion of these technologies throughout U.S. industry.

TOR: Terms of Reference.

TSRV: Transportation System Research Vehicles.

USGCRP: U.S. Global Change Research Program.

X-SAR: X-Synthetic Aperature Radar.