NASA's 6 Best Earth-Based Research Projects

Four decades after Apollo, we still know the folks at NASA as the people who made it to the moon, but they aren’t just about rockets: This year, nearly $2 billion of the agency’s $17 billion budget is slated for aeronautics and earth-­science research. While the “space” part of NASA gears up for a long-delayed manned return to the moon, the agency’s down-to-earth divisions are quietly yielding some practical advances.