NASA Technology Transfer
Lee E. Duke
transfer of NASA developed technology to industry. One of the ideas
I've come up with is to provide a newsgroup for each project. In the
beginning, the project's schedule, goals, and research objectives
would be posted. Interested parties could provide feedback and,
ideally, redirect the project. (I think this is particularly important
for flight research.)
Once the project was underway, test plans, instrumentation techniques,
control law methodologies, etc. could be posted. This, one hopes,
would generate another round of communications.
As the flight research progresses, I would propose to make data and
reports available on-line for easy access. This might also spur
discussions and suggest further research.
I know this is just a rough idea but I would appreciate feedback.
Is anyone interested in such an approach?
Does anything like this exist?
What are the problems you see with such an approach?
Do you have any suggestions on how such a system should be
implemented?
Would this be of any use to you?
Thanks for your help. Unless you just want to tell me that I'm one
stupid cluck, please post your answers to this newsgroup so the
discussion of this issue can be public.
Thanks for your help.
Lee Duke du...@louie.dfrf.nasa.gov
NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility
[Hw'a not a stupid cluck, but either F or R and I'll post the replies.
MFS]
Duane Mattern (Sverdrup)
aeron...@rascal.ics.utexas.edu writes...
>I have been asked by my supervisor to look at ways to improve the
>transfer of NASA developed technology to industry. One of the ideas
>I've come up with is to provide a newsgroup for each project.
I think the idea is good in general, but one newsgroup for each project
is way to many. Just have a couple of general areas for each newsgroup.
This newsgroup should be good for any flight projects. You could use
the newsgroup to establish a mailing list and then set up an automatic
mailer of program updates. Discussion of the program could follow up
in the newsgroup.
>In the beginning, the project's schedule, goals, and research objectives
>would be posted. Interested parties could provide feedback and,
>ideally, redirect the project. (I think this is particularly important
>for flight research.)
Suggestions could be made, but there is going to be a lot of noisy
chatter that SOMEONE is going to have to filter (real time sink).
>Once the project was underway, test plans, instrumentation techniques,
>control law methodologies, etc. could be posted. This, one hopes,
>would generate another round of communications.
You might want to post notices of the availability of Postscript format
papers that would be available via anonymous FTP. NASA Langley has
been doing this recently with their Technical Memorandums.
>As the flight research progresses, I would propose to make data and
>reports available on-line for easy access. This might also spur
>discussions and suggest further research.
Don't forget propulsion research :) My recent involvement with
a compressor test indicates that there is a lot of interest in
experimental data for analysis and model validation. Particularly from
Universities. Making data available in a standard format (ASCII
file) that is readable by various packages would be good
(readable from MATLAB, MatrixX/XMATH, etc).
>I know this is just a rough idea but I would appreciate feedback.
> Is anyone interested in such an approach?
> Does anything like this exist?
> What are the problems you see with such an approach?
This information would be available worldwide on the InterNet. You may
want tighter control over who gets the information. You could do this
with periodic automatic mailer (the Eletter for Control Systems is handled
like this.
> Would this be of any use to you?
Could be, but I'm using email now for all programs that I am associated
with. There is a limit to how much I am going to follow on the InterNet.
Duane Mattern (mat...@mars.lerc.nasa.gov) (216)433-8186
Sverdrup in the Advanced Controls Technology Branch
NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH 44135
Thomas Little
Lee E. Duke <aeron...@rascal.ics.utexas.edu> wrote:
>I have been asked by my supervisor to look at ways to improve the
>transfer of NASA developed technology to industry. One of the ideas
>I've come up with is to provide a newsgroup for each project. In the
>beginning, the project's schedule, goals, and research objectives
>would be posted. Interested parties could provide feedback and,
>ideally, redirect the project. (I think this is particularly important
>for flight research.)
Sounds good to me. I work in industry and would like to have access
to NASA's latest and greatest research information. I do, however,
have several comments and suggestions:
1. Would it be possible to have a "NASA News"-type list of all
non-classified projects and their current status? Included in this
info could be the appropriate newsgroup title (so we know where to
find the newsgroup).
2. How would you address the issue of technology transfer to
countries competing with our aircraft industry?
3. I am wary of letting outside entities "redirect" NASA's efforts.
How would you establish criteria for industry/academia input into
redirecting a NASA project.
4. Possibly answering questions 2 & 3, would it be a good idea to
"screen" subscribers to these newsgroup? Conversely, should this
information be open to the public so that anyone can participate?
Well, that's my two cents worth. I hope I don't sound like a stupid
cluck, either (hey, it's 7:10 am and I haven't had my coffee yet!).
Thanks,
Mike C.
VICIAN Theodore
>I have been asked by my supervisor to look at ways to improve the
>transfer of NASA developed technology to industry. One of the ideas
>I've come up with is to provide a newsgroup for each project. In the
>
>control law methodologies, etc. could be posted. This, one hopes,
>would generate another round of communications.
>
>As the flight research progresses, I would propose to make data and
>reports available on-line for easy access. This might also spur
>
I am.
> Does anything like this exist?
The Department of Defense has Technology Transfer
Programs. We also set Cooperative Research and
Development Agreements (CRADAs) with various industries.
I don't remember any plans to post any of this to
the Internet.
> What are the problems you see with such an approach?
You are proposing to add a lot of new newsgroups.
I think it would be better to have one group, maybe
sci.nasa. Then just use subject headers to separate
the projects. If a particular project generated
enough traffic, you could split it off to
sci.nasa.projectname. You'd probably want to make
this a moderated newsgroup(s). When this group went
from unmod to moderated, it improved vastly.
> Would this be of any use to you?
I'd like to see it. If it worked, perhaps other
agencies, like TACOM, could do similar things; with
our unclassified research, of course. :)
Ted Vician
US Army Tank-Automotive Command
Research, Development and Engineering Center
amst...@tacom-emh1.army.mil
The US Army hasn't given me the necessary clearance to give out
Its opinion.
Michael L Nelson
be made better with the use of a more hypermedia tool such as World
Wide Web (WWW). Below are excerpts from a LaRC memo that Tad Guy and
I wrote to advertise the existence of one of the more popular WWW
readers, NCSA Mosaic. It has become quite popular both @ LaRC and
other NASA centers.
Michael Nelson
---------------
There are many on-line resources available free of charge to LaRCNET
users over the Internet, of which LaRCNET is a part. These include
on-line library catalogs, technical reports, software, weather maps,
etc. But with the proliferation of these resources there has been a
proliferation of different tools to access them, including WAIS,
USENET, Gopher, Hytelnet, Archie, FTP, X.500, etc. Unfortunately,
each tool has its own interface and methodology, which makes it
difficult to find diverse information which may be spread among
several different resources.
There is now a simple, easy to use tool that can access all these
resources with a consistent user interface. This tool is `Mosaic'.
Mosaic is a World Wide Web (WWW) reader with built-in capability to
permit simple access to a wide variety of Internet Resources. Mosaic
was developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is
available free of charge.
Mosaic is available anonymous ftp as ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu:/Mosaic.
Within Mosaic, a `homepage' is the first screen that is visible upon
program execution, and contains information of interest to the members
of a given organization. A Langley-specific homepage has been
constructed, and can be accessed by adding the following environment
variable to your `.cshrc' file:
setenv WWW_HOME http://mosaic.larc.nasa.gov/larc.html
(NASA home page = http://hypatia.gsfc.nasa.gov/NASA_homepage.html)
Mosaic is a powerful tool for making on-line documentation easy to
locate and access. Several organizations at Langley are now using or
are considering the use of Mosaic for their on-line documentation.
John Dill
>transfer of NASA developed technology to industry. One of the ideas
>I've come up with is to provide a newsgroup for each project. In the
>would be posted. Interested parties could provide feedback and,
>ideally, redirect the project. (I think this is particularly important
>for flight research.)
>
>control law methodologies, etc. could be posted. This, one hopes,
>would generate another round of communications.
>
>As the flight research progresses, I would propose to make data and
>reports available on-line for easy access. This might also spur
Not only should all NASA data be posted, but all NASA's high tech and
very expensive research tools should be accesible to the general
public.
Imagine the private research that could take place if a supersonic
wind tunnel (or other expensive high tech gear..[ Cray Computer??] )
was made available to the public scientific community.
So, hell yes...get as many of us as possible informed!! It sure can't
hurt!
John
--
Dan Quayle was right! It's the family stupid!
Lee E. Duke
|>
|> Sounds good to me. I work in industry and would like to have access
|> to NASA's latest and greatest research information. I do, however,
|> have several comments and suggestions:
|>
|> 1. Would it be possible to have a "NASA News"-type list of all
|> non-classified projects and their current status? Included in this
|> info could be the appropriate newsgroup title (so we know where to
|> find the newsgroup).
I can't address the issue of all of NASA's projects. My current focus
is to try to implement a system for a single flight project at Dryden.
I do think that if we are successful, other NASA facilities and maybe
even NASA as a whole will get on board.
|>
|> 2. How would you address the issue of technology transfer to
|> countries competing with our aircraft industry?
|>
I don't know. I don't have a lot of solutions just a few ideas. I'm
looking for potential to the proposal so all the really smart people
on the net can give me some ideas on how to address them.
|> 3. I am wary of letting outside entities "redirect" NASA's efforts.
|> How would you establish criteria for industry/academia input into
|> redirecting a NASA project.
|>
I don't think NASA's research should be dictated nor redirected by
outside entities but I do think NASA managers and researchers need to
hear what industry and academia think of a certain part of the
research. Especially for flight projects.
|> 4. Possibly answering questions 2 & 3, would it be a good idea to
|> "screen" subscribers to these newsgroup? Conversely, should this
|> information be open to the public so that anyone can participate?
I'm not sure how you would screen subscribers. It's probably needed
but, again, I don't have a lot of answers yet.
Thanks for ideas.
Lee Duke
Azad Hessamoddini
: I have been asked by my supervisor to look at ways to improve the
: transfer of NASA developed technology to industry.
: I know this is just a rough idea but I would appreciate feedback.
: Is anyone interested in such an approach?
Of course... This is great, although I'm not sure wheather
publicizing data would be possible for everybody.
: What are the problems you see with such an approach?
I don't see any problems.
: Do you have any suggestions on how such a system should be
: implemented?
I suggest that some major categories be introduced, for instance
fluid mech discussion, numerical methods, experiments
and instrumentation...(Of course, some debate is needed!)
--
....... This message was transmitted on 100% recycled photons. ........
KLU...@agcb1.larc.nasa.gov
technology transfer. Almost as important would be to get rid of the
current system for distributing software. If someone asks me for three
or four lines of code, officially I'm not supposed to give it to him
but to clear it all with the COSMIC office, by which time the code will
be completely obsolete anyway...
--scott
Peter Ol'Tu
>Sounds good to me. I work in industry and would like to have access
>to NASA's latest and greatest research information.
NASA publishes "NASA Tech Briefs" monthly. It is free. Ask for
a copy and you may have all the information you want from them.
--
Disclaimer: Of course, don't be ridiculous! The article doesn't represent
the viewpoint of my Laboratory and should not be liable for
any legal or moral dispute. - Peter Ol'Tu
John R. Chawner
technology to industry are:
1. Have COSMIC re-evaluate their pricing policies for
software. Paying $1000 for 10 year old software
(e.g. PLOT3D) is ridiculous. Especially since the
s/w is free up until the point when COSMIC gets
it.
2. On-line edition of NASA Tech Briefs magazine.
Good luck. You've opened up a Pandora's Box of a task.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
John R. Chawner-(j...@mdaeng.com)-MDA Engineering Inc-Arlington, TX
"In the spirit of global peace and inspired by recent events
in the Middle East, GRIDGEN hereby acknowledges
NGP's right to exist."
Lee E. Duke
|> Advertising information via USENET news is a good idea, but it could
|> be made better with the use of a more hypermedia tool such as World
|> Wide Web (WWW).
I agree with all these ideas. I'll be contacting you to see how we might
best utilize Mosaic.
Thanks.
Lee Duke
[Do other readers of the group use the WWW and/or Mosaic? MFS]
Lee E. Duke
|> be made better with the use of a more hypermedia tool such as World
|> Wide Web (WWW).
I agree with all these ideas. I'll be contacting you to see how we might
Lee E. Duke
|> My suggestions for improving the transfer of NASA developed
|> technology to industry are:
|>
|> 1. Have COSMIC re-evaluate their pricing policies for
|> software. Paying $1000 for 10 year old software
|> (e.g. PLOT3D) is ridiculous. Especially since the
|> s/w is free up until the point when COSMIC gets
|> it.
|>
|> 2. On-line edition of NASA Tech Briefs magazine.
|>
|> Good luck. You've opened up a Pandora's Box of a task.
|>
John,
I can't do squat about COSMIC although I'd like too. The idea of an
electronic version of the tech briefs has come up before. I think this
is an excellent idea.
If anyone at other NASA facilities is interested in working on this
problem I'd like to hear from them.
Lee
[Let's keep the suggestions within the bounds of reality--engineers at
NASA field centers are somewhat limited in their ability to effect
Agency-wide change. MFS]
L.F.F...@lut.ac.uk
material is easily available by post. Can anyone tell me the
address/e-mail I should write to to get a listing of what's available
and more information on how to get it sent over to the UK ?
Thanks.
Lester
Dan Newman
>tgli...@access.digex.net (Thomas Little) writes:
>
>>Sounds good to me. I work in industry and would like to have access
>>to NASA's latest and greatest research information.
The Aerospace Database, which is essentially STAR and IAA combined, is
already available on line through dialog.com. The software could be a
bit more user friendly, but it's not too difficult to do a monthly
search of your favorite topics. Unfortunately it costs real money
(annual subscription plus connect charges), and the untrustworthy
foreigners who buy F18s and B747s have some difficulty getting access
to the research data.
A better system might be the CARL Uncover databases, also available
on line (for money) and with the option of hard copy of most
documents within 24 hours.
Dan Newman, Department of Aeronautical Engineering | d...@aero.ae.su.OZ.AU
University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006, AUSTRALIA | Ph : 61 2 692 2347