Universities Space Research Association

The Universities Space Research Association (USRA) was incorporated on March 12, 1969 in Washington, D.C. as a private, nonprofit corporation under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Institutional membership in the Association has grown from 49 colleges and universities when it was founded, to the current 105 institutions. All member institutions have graduate programs in space sciences or technology. Besides the 95 member institutions in the United States, there are two member institutions in Canada, four in Europe, two in Israel, one in Australia and one in Hong Kong.

USRA provides a mechanism through which universities can cooperate effectively with one another, with the government, and with other organizations to further space science and technology, and to promote education in these areas. Its mission is carried out through the institutes, centers, divisions, and programs. Administrative and scientific personnel now number about 420. A unique feature of USRA’s management is its system of standing panels of technical experts, drawn from the research community, to provide oversight for USRA’s institutes, centers, divisions and programs.

USRA’s origins extend back to 1966, when the NASA Administrator requested the help of the NAS in forming a national consortium to assume management of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. The president of the NAS, Dr. Frederick Seitz, first turned to the Universities Research Association (URA), which had recently been created to operate the National Accelerator Laboratory. Dr. Seitz raised the issue of NASA's involvement at a URA meeting in the fall of 1966. However, because of budgetary concerns with the National Accelerator Laboratory, URA did not wish to assume any additional responsibilities.

To satisfy its immediate needs, NASA took upon itself the management of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory but left open the possibility of wider participation of the academic community through an institute. At this time, the idea of a Lunar Science Institute (LSI) took form. To develop further the concept of the LSI, the NAS created a committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Kenneth Pitzer to study NASA/University Relations. In the fall of 1967, the Pitzer Committee recommended the establishment of the LSI initially to be operated by Rice University under a subcontract with the NAS, but eventually to be operated by a university consortium. The Pitzer committee concluded that the pattern established at LSI could form the basis for the development of a much broader link between NASA and the academic community.

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