Volume 8, Number 5     September/October 2000

Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business
Technology Transfer Provide Leverage for NASA

By Carl Ray
NASA SBIR Executive Director
NASA Headquarters

“Leverage” is a common buzzword around NASA these days; it stems from the tighter budgetary atmosphere of the last few years. When people talk about leveraging, they generally are trying to utilize resources (funds or equipment, for example) from sources outside their particular programs.

Historically, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, and later the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, have provided tactical leverage for NASA mission programs that have been able to understand and utilize them to their best advantage. The usage is tactical in the sense that the potential utility was seen as an unscheduled, unplanned, and often unlikely opportunity.

Today, the SBIR/STTR programs, with their recent realignments to NASA enterprise priorities, have matured, and it has become apparent that NASA mission programs are beginning to look to the SBIR/STTR programs for more than their tactical problem solving value. One program in particular has very successfully leveraged the SBIR/STTR programs in a broader strategic manner.

The general aviation (GA) revitalization, embodied in 1994 with the AGATE (Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments) consortium, has strategically leveraged the SBIR and STTR programs to support its efforts. SBIR/STTR funding for GA projects has been more than $34 million between 1993 and 1998. The funds went directly to award winners-small businesses working on problems specified by the NASA GA community as subtopics in the SBIR and STTR solicitations. The results have been substantial.

The AGATE program was designed as a government-industry-university consortium and consists of more than 70 members. Its goals were to help revitalize the ailing industry by developing affordable new technologies and advocating for new standards and certification methods for next-generation single-pilot and near all-weather light aircraft.

It has been almost eight years since the NASA GA effort embarked on its strategic partnership with the SBIR/STTR programs. In the continuing success of this effort, NASA SBIR Phase II contracts have contributed to 14 marketable commercial successes as well as 14 technology developments. Now as their successes become visible, other NASA mission programs are actively seeking advice from the GA and AGATE teams on how to best use SBIR/STTR to help achieve their goals.

There is still a large portion of the total general aviation revitalization equation yet to be solved. For example, there are more than 5,000 public-use aviation landing facilities within the United States, and most are underused because of limited systems capabilities. The Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) is an initiative to focus on these challenges, with a goal of increasing personal mobility by providing affordable all-weather use of the nation's public-use landing facilities and better integration of small aircraft into our air transportation system. Technology areas include the integration of safe, low-cost and easy-to-fly aircraft with smart, small airports. The SATS team, already knowledgeable in the GA/SBIR partnership, is putting the successful momentum of that experience to good use in continuing to form future pathways of partnering with the SBIR program with a focus on the SATS initiative.

In another instance, the Kennedy Space Center has, over the past few years, initiated an extensive effort to develop its Spaceport Technology Center. The Center is seen as becoming a world class resource for the emerging space transportation industry. It is dedicated to furthering the visionary approaches for developing technologies for the spaceports of the future: a future in which spaceflight will become so affordable that industry will be able to take advantage of it for research, manufacturing and human exploration.

Clearly, the NASA SBIR/STTR program sees both SATS and the Spaceport Technology Center as viable sources for subtopics, as well as for exploring strategic partnering opportunities. The inclusion of SBIR in their strategic, programmatic planning is another way in which both can provide greater benefit to NASA, as well as to the country, in two ways: first, as a value-added technology development resource providing contribution to mission thrusts of the agency, and second, as a national resource providing R&D opportunities for the small business community, benefiting NASA, the company, the industry, and ultimately the nation's people. Just another way NASA SBIR/STTR is “helping small business make a big difference.”

Credits