🚀 go-pugleaf

   There has been much mention of the NASA and the DOE getting into tech
transfer, CRADAs, civilian DARPA, and other forms of the government acting
as a venture capitalist in the past year.  For those of us doing this as
a real business and resent this government socialism, the following article
only reinforces the belief that commercial space and commercial energy should
be left to the commercial markets.

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

NASA ADMITS TO EXAGGERATING TECH TRANSFER
    Process is 'Nonintegrated, Undocumented, Too Slow'

    (Washington Technology 1/14/93, page 1)

    Popular mythology says NASA brought America spin-off classics like Tang,
Velcro and Teflon.  But the space agency only popularized them. These sacred
public relations cows were slain by an in-house study that says NASA's
technology transfer reputation has been overblown and falls far short of the
mark.
   "Technology transfer processes are nonintegrated, undocumented and too
slow" says the bare-knuckled assessment that was chartered last May by NASA
adminstrator Daniel Goldin.  The study confirms what many in the commercial
space industry have said privately, but smudges NASA's public reputation
as a role model in technology transfer.
   Oddly enough, Dan Goldin says the highly critical report is a victory.
"I am thrilled", Goldin said during a January 12 interview with Washington
Technology.  "These employees had courage" to buck the system.  "This is
what I have been trying to accomplish at NASA", added Goldin, who was
delighted with the report's tone of honest self-appraisal.
    While NASA has historically had some very successful transfers into the
medical and aeronautics fields, the team concluded "there have not been very
many technology transfer successes compared to the potential ... and past
successes have been largely anecdotal".  A key problem is when NASA employees
think of tech transfer, they tend to consider only the "primary" transfer
of mission-related technologies to mission-oriented customers.
    Meanwhile "secondary" transfers - like special aerospace materials good
for knee replacements - go unconsidered.  "Many developers of NASA technology
have had little or no direct interest in non-aerospace applications", the
report says.
   The study also says that the agency has been too slow to get transferable
knowledge out to industry.  Technical papers can take nine months to get
published, while listings in the NASA journal Tech Briefs can take as much
as 18 months to get to press.
   Further, the authors found NASA tech transfer centers understaffed and
badly coordinated.  Most troubling, they discovered that around the agency
employees, managers and contractors "do not feel technology transfer is
part of their job".  The study slammed NASA management for fostering this
problem by failing to reward tech transfer when it does take place.
   "We want tech transfer to be part of each individual's job", team deputy
Chairman Kathy Abbott said.  She was quick to point out that NASA personnel
are eager to improve and "are not generally waiting for Dan Goldin to say
'do it'".

-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178