Technology Transfer: 1997 Year in Review
echnologies "twice used"—once for NASA's principal mission in space and aeronautics and again for other purposes in the form of products and services—directly affect and improve the quality of life on Earth. Featured in this issue of Aerospace Technology Innovation are 1997's highlights of the technologies in use today and being developed for tomorrow. These highlights include a wide range of technology transfer successes in partnering, information dissemination, technical assistance, licensing, cooperative research and development, collaboration, commercialization, telemedicine, the Mars Pathfinder mission and NASA's Crusade for Women's Health. The following is a synopsis of 1997 Innovation featured highlights:
NASA and Red Pepper Launch Hot Item
Space Shuttle launch software allowed the market value of Red Pepper Software, a San Mateo, California, company, to grow to $225 million in just three years. The company adapted NASA's Ground Processing Scheduling System (GPSS) for some of America's Fortune 500 companies to help manage worldwide business transactions from one location. The commercial software systems inspired by GPSS supplement existing transactional and shop control systems, helping production and distribution centers satisfy customer demands by optimizing materials, capacity and labor in real time. At Kennedy Space Center, GPSS schedules the thousands of activities that simultaneously prepare the four Space Shuttle orbiters.
NASA Recycles Milk Bottles
Rescue blankets made of recycled plastic milk bottles are a recent spinoff from the NASA Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program's research and development of lightweight metal insulation for spacecraft. Using the "honeycomb concept," researchers, in collaboration with NASA scientists at Ames Research Center, created a lightweight plastic insulation for blankets and clothing that is comparable to, yet better than, wool. This new material can keep a person warm even when it is wet. The rescue blanket is expected to be used primarily by disaster assistance and emergency rescue teams.Telemedicine Space and Earth Programs
Several NASA Centers of Excellence are investigating and implementing ways to bring telecommunications information technologies and medicine together to deliver health care, not only to astronauts but to citizens of Earth who live in remote locations and have limited access to medical care. A major focus of 1997 was NASA's progressive telemedicine programs and initiatives, which began nearly 40 years ago as a solution to a problem; NASA needed to be able to monitor astronauts' biomedical responses because they were in extreme and remote environments. NASA released an Integrated Strategic Program Plan (ISPP) for Telemedicine that outlined the Agency's commitment to enhancing its capability to provide medical care in support of human space flight and the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) Enterprise. Humans living in remote locations on Earth who need medical care will benefit from these new advances, as they already do from current NASA telemedicine technologies. NASA continues efforts to meet the challenge of delivering health care to astronauts in space as well as people in remote areas of the world, working toward telemedicine applications and collaboration with academia, industry and other government agencies.NASA Feeds the Hungry
East Africans learned to cook with solar energy and the help of a nonprofit California group promoting solar cooking technology, using data generated by NASA's Mission to Planet Earth program and the NASA Surface Solar Energy data set created by Langley Research Center and Analytical Services and Materials, Inc., of Hampton Virginia. Solar cooking—a clean, safe, convenient, relatively cheap heat source that reduces smoke, air pollution and deforestation—also may be used to pasteurize drinking water to help prevent disease. It will reduce time and money spent for firewood and cooking fuel.Emerging Technologies From Mars Missions
The Mars Exploration program as a whole plans a decade of inexpensive, innovative missions, but in 1997 the Mars Pathfinder embraced the basic Discovery program charter that encourages the use of available hardware. It also tested a number of novel systems, components and software, some showing great commercial promise, including a partnership with Mattel Inc., that renewed public interest in the space program. Some of the most interesting technologies emerged from the Mars Pathfinder mission, including: rocker-bogie suspension, silica aerogel insulation, Dynamics Algorithms for Real-Time Simulation (DARTS) software, the piezoelectric ultrasonic motor, the surface acoustic wave microhygrometer and a newly developed lightweight carbon fiber composite. The Mars Pathfinder has emerged as the quintessential model for NASA's faster, cheaper, better paradigm.Crusade for Women's Health
"There's Space in My Life" is an innovative, two year initiative to reach women, men and their families to share information about how NASA science, research and technologies improve their lives. The initiative originated with NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, who wants to share information about how aerospace is an investment in our current standard of living, our knowledge of our place in the universe and our children's future. The commitment is to identify, develop and transfer NASA technologies to benefit women's health. Major areas of concern are cancer, reproductive health, pregnancy, osteoporosis and education. Teaming with industry, academia and government, several NASA biomedical experiments have resulted in successful new technology programs among NASA, the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Women's Health. Innovationfeatured highlights of the technologies in use today and being developed for tomorrow that help doctors find and treat breast cancer. The experiments included: silicon chips, next-generation digital mammography, advanced ultrasound, smart robot probe, telemammography and tissue growth.As we progress into 1998, Aerospace Technology Innovationwill continue to report updates of past highlights, as well as feature new and exciting stories about NASA's technology transfer and commercialization program results.
For more information, you may access 1997 issues
of Innovation
at NASA's Commercial Technology web site at http://nctn.hq.nasa.gov
Or contact Karen Kafton at the National Technology Transfer Center.
Call (304) 243-2415, Fax: (304) 243-2457, E-mail: kkafton@nttc.edu
Please mention you read about it in Innovation.
Volume 5, Number 1
January/February 1997
Volume 5, Number 2
March/April 1997
Volume 5, Number 3
May/June 1997
Volume 5, Number 4
July/August 1997
Volume 5, Number 5
September/October 1997
Volume 5, Number 6
November/December 1997
