Elvia Thompson
Headquarters, Washington, DC                  August 26, 1998
(Phone:  202/358-1696)

RELEASE:  98-152

NASA ANNOUNCES RESEARCH GRANTS IN MICROGRAVITY COMBUSTION SCIENCE

     NASA has selected 49 researchers to receive grants totaling
approximately $20 million to conduct microgravity combustion
research.  Forty-one of the grants are to conduct ground-based
research, while the remaining eight are flight definition efforts.
Eighteen of these grants are for continuation of work being funded
by NASA, but most (31) represent new research efforts.

     The investigators will have NASA's microgravity research
facilities such as drop-tubes, drop-towers, aircraft flying
parabolic trajectories, and sounding rockets at their disposal.
The flight-definition investigators will work toward experiments
on a space-flight test bed.  Sponsored by NASA's Office of Life
and Microgravity Science and Applications, this research offers
investigators the opportunity to take advantage of a low-gravity
environment to improve understanding of fundamental physical and
chemical processes associated with combustion.

     NASA received 155 responses to its research announcement.
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 Lewis
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/1998/98-152a.txt

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