NSF

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent research institution of the U.S. Government, founded in 1950 under the motto “To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense”. In 1959 NSF’s annual budget has increased by almost 100 million dollar to 134 million compared to the year before as a result of the successful launch of the Sputnik satellite. Ten years later NSF had a budget of 500 million dollar, and today NSF has about 5.6 billion dollar for research purposes.
NSF research include the most different areas such as geology, astronomy, zoology or social- and economic science. Computer science and network technology is funded by NSF as well. In 1979 NSF supported the development of CSNET to link universities, that didn’t have a connection to the ARPANET, yet. In 1981 ARPA allowed that part of the CSNET traffic could flow across the ARPANET – another milestone in the expansion of the internet.

Due to the fast growth of CSNET, NSF started to develop NSFNET in 1985. With its five super computer centers and a 56 Kbps line, it played an important role in the early stages of the internet. One reason is the fact that NSF also used the TCP/IP protocols, which made it possible in the first place to connect ARPANET with NSFNET – a huge step towards a worldwide computer network.
In the beginning NSFNET was only allowed to be used for research purposes, but as result of the high demand coming from the economy, commercial networks such as UUNET werde created. It was not until 1991 when NSF changed their firm policy to allow commercial data transfer as well.
Other noteworthy examples for the work of NSF are important studies of the ozone hole or support of the research in nanotechnology.