7.2 NASA's Technology Transfer and Commercialization Program

Today, more than ever, advanced technology is the key to America's economic growth and development. NASA's Commercial Technology Network is at the forefront of developing relationships that allow aerospace expertise and technology to be incorporated into the private sector. As critical technologies for aerospace use are developed, NASA works with industry by co-developing, partnering, and licensing to commercialize these technologies and maximize their impact across the broadest range of applications.

NASA strengthened the Commercial Technology Network's Technology Transfer program in 1989 to make technology available to businesses, universities, and other government agencies. Working with national and regional technology transfer networks and our industrial partners, we reduce development costs, accelerate production schedules, and deploy existing technologies to points where they can make significant differences for both companies and individuals. By sharing technology with industry, NASA realizes two of its major goals: to strengthen America's competitiveness in the world marketplace and ensure future technological breakthroughs.

National needs for quality, durability, value, and environmental protection benefit from NASA's drive to improve on all these fronts. Across the agency, researchers are applying aerospace technologies in conventional and unconventional ways, stretching the boundaries and creating new applications for a host of new materials, processes, and inventions, many of which find their most promising uses outside the traditional aerospace applications.

NASA works directly with industry to develop many aircraft technologies, but we also develop technology for launch vehicles, spacecraft, rocket engines, pumps, turbines, nozzles, and injectors. Insulation, coatings, electronic components, and even software emerge from NASA's efforts in a steady stream, and almost all are available for use by American industry.

As we move into the 21st century, NASA is seizing the technological high ground, and bringing the opportunities that come from it to America's industries and people. Following are brief examples of technologies developed for NASA applications outside of aeronautics. The commercialization of these technologies has provided benefits to the air transportation industry in a variety of applications. As examples, we have selected technologies that have been applied to airports and their operations.

Reusable Surface Insulation
Advanced Flexible Reusable Surface Insulation was developed by Ames Research Center to protect the Space Shuttle from the searing heat that engulfs it on reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Hi-Temp Insulation, Inc., has adapted this Space Shuttle program technology for commercial use.

NASA-assisted improvements to the insulation material gives it the ability to withstand heating and cooling cycles, rapid and fluctuating temperature changes, continuous vibration and gravitational stress, and contact with aircraft engine contaminants.

A Fire Protection Division of Hi-Temp Insulation has been established, offering the first suit designed exclusively by and for aircraft rescue fire fighters. The suit offers great mobility, comfort, and flexibility while weighing far less than other heat-protecting apparel. From the inside out, the suit retards heat, scalding steam, flammable fumes, and molten liquids.

Thermal Packaging
Aluminized polymer film used in spacecraft as a radiation barrier to protect both astronauts and delicate instruments now has many different applications.

The packaging reflects outside heat away from contents inside the container. Spinoff applications of the material include aluminized shipping bags, food cart covers, medical bags, gel packs, insulated panels, and express mailers.

Airline Operations Aid
C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS), a NASA-developed expert systems program, is used by American Airlines for three purposes: as a rapid prototyping tool; to develop production prototypes; and to develop production applications. An example of the latter is CLIPS' use in "Hub S1AAshing," a knowledge-based system that recommends contingency plans when severe schedule reductions must be made. Hub S1AAshing has replaced a manual, labor-intensive process. It saves time and allows operations control coordinators to handle more difficult situations. Because the system assimilates much of the information necessary to facilitate educated decision making, it minimizes negative impact in situations where it is impossible to operate all flights.

3D Audio System
Research into virtual reality led to the development of the Convolvotron (manufactured by Crystal River Engineering), a high-speed digital audio processing system that delivers three-dimensional sound over headphones. It consists of a two-card set designed for use with a personal computer. The Convolvotron's primary application is presentation of 3D audio signals over headphones. Four independent sound sources are filtered with large time-varying filters that compensate for motion. The perceived location of the sound remains constant. Possible applications are in air traffic control towers or airplane cockpits, hearing and perception research, and virtual reality development.

Traffic Monitor
The X-15 "Eye in the Sky," a traffic monitoring system, incorporates NASA imaging and robotic vision technology. A camera or "sensor box" is mounted in a housing. The sensor detects vehicles approaching an intersection and sends the information to a computer, which controls the traffic light according to the traffic rate. Jet Propulsion Laboratory technical support packages aided Mestech in developing the system. The X-15's "smart highway" can also be used to count vehicles on a highway and compute the number in each lane and their speeds, important information for freeway control engineers. Additional applications are in airport and railroad operations. The system is intended to replace loop-type traffic detectors.

Environment Monitor and Explosives Detection
When Viking landers touched down on Mars equipped with a variety of systems to conduct automated research, each one carried a compact but highly sophisticated instrument for analyzing Martian soil and atmosphere. The instrument called a Gas Chromatography/ Mass Spectrometer (GC/MS) had to be small, lightweight, shock resistant, highly automated and extremely sensitive, yet require minimal electrical power. Viking Instruments commercialized this technology and targeted their primary market as environmental monitoring, and especially the monitoring of toxic and hazardous waste sites. Waste sites often contain chemicals in complex mixtures, and the conventional method of site characterization, taking samples on-site and sending them to a laboratory for analysis, is time consuming and expensive. Other terrestrial applications are explosive detection in airports, drug detection, industrial air monitoring, and medical metabolic monitoring for military, chemical warfare agents.

Airline Wheelchair
Few people who use wheelchairs travel by air because of the difficulties in moving through the airplane cabin. A cooperative program involving several organizations has led to a wheelchair that is capable of moving through the narrow aisle of an airliner to move passengers to their seats and give them access to the lavatories. One of the prototypes was designed by the University of Virginia Rehabilitation Engineering Center with help from NASA's Langley Research Center. Langley applied aerospace technology in structural analysis and materials engineering. The wheelchair is stable, durable, and easy to handle. It is made of composite materials, weighs only 17 pounds, and can support a 200-pound person. The chair folds easily for stowage when not in use.

Fuel-Efficient Buses
A government, industry, and academic cooperative is developing an advanced hybrid electric city transit bus. Goals of this effort include doubling the fuel economy of buses currently in service and reducing emissions to one tenth of EPA standards.

Enhanced Video Images
The new NASA software, VISAR, can make valuable clues visible in videos taken in low light. The single frame image (left) taken at night was brightened, enhancing both details and noise, or "snow." Then, to further overcome the video defects in one frame, VISAR adds information from multiple frames to reveal a person. To create the clarified image (right), 50 frames of videoÐwhich is less than one second on videotapeÐwere added together.

NASA POC:
Dr. Robert Norwood
(202) 358-2320
rnorwood@hq.nasa.gov