An overview of NASA's intelligent systems program

NASA and the computer science research community are poised to enter a critical era. An era in which - it seems - each needs the other. Market forces, driven by the immediate economic viability of computer science research results, place computer science in a relatively novel position. These forces impact how research is done, and could, in the worst case, drive the field away from significant innovation - opting instead for incremental advances that result in greater stability in the market place. NASA, however, requires significant advances in computer science research in order to accomplish the exploration and science agenda it has set out for itself. NASA may indeed be poised to advance computer science research in this century, much the way it advanced aero-based research in the last.