The Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, part of the National Academies’ Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences (DEPS) has released a report that concludes that the type and sophistication of flight research currently being conducted by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) today is relatively low and that the agency's overall progress in aeronautics is severely constrained by its inability to actually advance its research projects to the flight research stage, a step that is vital to bridging the confidence gap and that it had the capability to do in the past.

According to the committee that produced the report, without the ability to actually take flight, NASA's aeronautics research cannot progress, cannot make new discoveries, and cannot contribute to U.S. aerospace preeminence.

DEPS, like TRB, is a division of the National Academies, which include the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council.