Missoula News

Space Center

INSA Fights PR Battle

By Dylan Tucker, 4-11-06

The Inland Northwest Space Alliance announced Tuesday that it has been selected to help develop a small secondary payload spacecraft as part of a NASA project to search for water on the moon in 2008.

The INSA’s role in the project seems small, especially when compared to the investigation surrounding the Missoula non-profit’s ties to the University of Montana, and more than 3 million in NASA grants that the organization has not sufficiently accounted for.

During that investigation representatives of both the University of Montana and the INSA have downplayed connections between the University and the organization, connections that this new project will most likely renew.

The INSA will assist the NASA Ames Research Center with the education and public outreach sections of the project, said George Bailey, CEO of INSA.

The INSA plans on using professors from the University of Montana to help analyze the data that the mission recovers.

“The universities and area K-12 students will help interpret the data,” Bailey said, as part of the outreach programs that the INSA will develop.

The INSA is described as a research and outreach center by it’s own website, but has little to show for results other than a few space-themed days at local elementary schools.

The INSA’s involvement in this latest project seems little more than perfunctory. The project itself involves a satellite the size of a lunchbox traveling in extra space on a shuttle mission. The satellite will then crash down on the moon, where it will record data and send it back electronically. In their role “supporting by educating,” the INSA seems to perform a purely public relations function. Bailey said the center will increase awareness of the program among Montana’s students.

The INSA hopes to change perception with this latest venture. Bailey says the center could increase its research function in the course of the project.

“One of the steps that we’re looking into is the small but slim possibility that we might get some part of developing the actual hardware for the mission,” Bailey said.

But the questions raised by the investigation into the INSA’s use of more than 3 million in NASA grants obtained through the University of Montana remain unanswered.

The investigation being conducted by Montana state legislative auditor Scott Seacat will conclude in June- the same month that the INSA’s latest venture is scheduled to begin.

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