News Updates

Private start-up companies are increasingly looking at solar geoengineering—blocking some of the sun’s rays from reaching Earth—but “regulations around outdoor experiments and possible broader deployments aren’t keeping up,” NPR reports. In Issues, John Deutch and Maria Zuber consider the pros and cons of the technology, concluding that there is an “urgent need” for the government to launch an R&D program “to obtain as much information as possible to inform assessment of whether the benefits outweigh the risks.” They also call for an independent oversight committee to monitor results, serving in effect as an initial “technology governance step.”

NASA is seeking faster ways to deliver to Earth the soil and rock samples now being collected on Mars by the rover Perseverance, hoping to move up arrival to sometime in the 2030s. For whenever it happens, Bhavya Lal and Jeff Trauberman maintain in Issues, NASA must be prepared to ensure that the samples will not contaminate our home planet with harmful biological organisms. To this end, the authors call for a comprehensive review of the nation’s approach to planetary protection, and they lay out a set of policy and technology concerns to be addressed, including identifying potential harms and appropriate levels of scrutiny.

The Biden administration will provide Intel with roughly $19 million in direct funding and loans to build or upgrade plants to manufacture advanced semiconductor chips, along with extra funds for workforce development—the government’s largest investment to date through the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. In Issues, a series of essays broadly examines the promise and implementation of the CHIPS Act. One essay, for example, argues for looking beyond its expanded funding and calls on leaders in government, academia, industry, and nonprofits to “converge on a renewed social compact that advances a bold vision for America’s technological leadership.”