dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA (04/06/84)
Bill Westfield: I agree completely that we must distinguish demand and supply effects (demand effects being the economic activity generated by NASA engineers spending their salaries, supply effects being new technology). That fact that ANY government spending has the same demand effect is instructive. Can you provide some numbers on supply effects? Henry Spencer, Steve Ludlum: I still think NASA spending on specific space projects is a poor way to foster general technological progress. It certainly isn't necesary (Japan spends much less on space, for example). By "basic research" I really meant to include "basic development": research intended to produce new materials, technologies, etc., such as Japan's MITI sponsored research. I'd still like some hard figures on the value of NASA spinoffs, or even a list of any significant spinoffs. Ferrofluids are one, generating sales of around $100 million a year. Any others? What would the economic return be if an amount of money equal to NASA's budget were instead invested by venture capitalists in high tech startup companies? Quite a bit larger, I'd think, and it would be a real gain, not demand effects.
kcarroll@utzoo.UUCP (Kieran A. Carroll) (04/19/84)
* To BILLW@SRI-KL: I attempted to send you a reply through the reply facility of our news system, but it didn't seem to make it through to you. So, here's the message: Please send me a copy of that NASA economic-benefits report, if you have any of them left. My address is... Kieran A. Carroll University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies 4925 Dufferin Street Toronto, Ontario Canada M3H 5T6 Thank-you!
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (04/19/84)
dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA comments:
............................. I still think NASA spending on specific
space projects is a poor way to foster general technological progress.
It certainly isn't necesary (Japan spends much less on space, for
example). By "basic research" I really meant to include "basic
development": research intended to produce new materials, technologies,
etc., such as Japan's MITI sponsored research. ...
My understanding is that Japan, until quite recently, has spent almost
nothing on basic research or basic development. Most of their work has
been on production and reliability, with heavy reliance on basic R+D
done elsewhere. It remains to be seen whether their recent initiatives
in home-grown basic research are going to work; these efforts cannot yet
be cited as evidence for anything.
Venture capital investment is very good at bringing technologies to
market, i.e. tidying up the rough edges and selling it. It does very
little for making the blasted stuff work in the first place, because
basic R+D is too long-term to be attractive to venture capital. With
the exception of a few farsighted large corporations, it is hard to find
*anybody* who is willing to sink a substantial amount of money into work
that is really long-term. A typical manager's idea of "long-term planning"
is two years.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henryal@ames-lm.UUCP (Al Globus) (04/20/84)
A (very) few spin-offs: o Computer chips o Solar cells o Communication satellites o Weather satellites o Remote sensing satellites o Spy satellites o Velcro o Pacemaker parts o The material for the doors on my wood stove o Special purpose protective gear for football players o Fire fighting equipment Every year NASA puts out a book called 'SPINOFFS 19??' listing hundreds of spinoffs. The things listed above NASA either did or had a major influence on.
dls@hocse.UUCP (04/20/84)
I believe that you are making some incorrect points about the nature of research in Japan. MITI does NOT sponsor pure research or straight development, but hews to an intermediate zone of high payoff, high potential work some where in the middle, such as the construction of supercomputers. In fact, MITI programs usually have built on basic research done in Britain and the US. I agree that NASA should not be justified via spinoffs. NASA's goal should be the exploration and development of space, not the production of frying pans. Unfortunately, NASA's goals are politically determined, rather than guided by a rational, step by step progess toward the commercial use of space. The construction of a space station is a welcome turn toward a more measured, results oriented program as opposed to one with an emphasis on "firsts" and "spectaculars." We have an entire agency in this country for funding basic reseach(NSF) with a budget of over one billion dollars. What america needs is the technology base to permit industry to exploit the possibilities present in space exploration. NASA is a techonology oriented agency, and is ideally suited to providing this base. Giving money to many small, high-tech firms will result in much duplication of effort and dilution of effect. The govenment is ill-suited to the task of deciding which firms to fund in any case.
julian@osu-dbs.UUCP (Julian Gomez) (04/21/84)
> The obvious manufacturing-productivity things happened: by getting a > product to market, they subsequently improved the process yield, price, > and efficiency far beyond the American originator's abilities. There > are even rumors of photovoltaic roofing tile. A lot of things are obvious once someone else figures them out.
ed@unisoft.UUCP (04/22/84)
It may be true that Japan hasn't spent much until recently on basic R&D. I think it's still true that they aren't spending on research. A professor I know, who is involved in VLSI including chip-disign systems and methodologies, recently (about 2 years ago, actually) visited with some Japanese companies. One of the things he reported was a comment made by one of the Japanese folks. When asked how it was that the Japanese seemed to have the best design and design-rule checking software aroune, the Japanese replied that it wasn't anything new or original. They'd just implemented some of the published US research! What I think this really means is that the US companies are suffering from a bad case of Not Invented Here. -- Ed Gould ucbvax!mtxinu!ed
jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (John Quarterman) (04/30/84)
The U.S. equivalent of Japan's MITI is Microelectronics and Computer Corp.,
or MCC, which is a consortium of a dozen or so firms (DEC, Intel, CDC, etc.).
Evidently those companies didn't think a large number of companies doing
duplicate reseach was cost-effective, either, or that the government was
the appropriate entity to choose who should be funded.
Of course both MITI and MCC are very goal-oriented and do little basic
research (if basic research is taken to be that which has no immediate
goal); we have NSF to fund that, and DARPA has in the past had a large
effect in certain fields such as computer graphics and networking (they
eventually wanted military networks, but were willing to take a
while).
I was under the impression that NASA's purpose is exploration of space
and development of access to space, for both scientific and industrial
uses (communication and weather satellites are early examples; IRAS is
currently being noticed; pharmaceutical synthesis may be next). Spinoffs
are a convenient way to show that even if you don't agree with NASA's
purposes, the space program is beneficial, but spinoffs are not the
object: the direct use of space is.
--
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712 USA
jsq@ut-sally.ARPA, jsq@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsqredford@JEREMY.DEC (John Redford) (11/19/85)
There's been a lot of talk recently about spinoffs of high-tech government programs, particularly in regard to SDI. I'd like to get some discussion going on this, because it's a commonly used argument both for SDI and the space program in general. Let me start with a blanket statement: The commercial value of spinoffs is negligible. Before I get jumped on by people citing jet aircraft and nuclear power plants, let me define the term spinoff a little more carefully. A spinoff is a technological development arising from research into something else. The Boeing 707 was not a spinoff of previous work because the previous work was directly aimed at producing a passenger jet aircraft. Likewise nuclear power: the government invested tens of billions of dollars into reactor research; it was not a casual side-effect of bomb work. That said, let's look at two spinoffs commonly attributed to the space program: integrated circuits and non-stick frying pans. Frying pans are often cited as a trivial spinoff, but they are not even that. Teflon was actually developed by Du Pont in the Fifties, long before Apollo needed tough plastics with high melting points. Surely, though, ICs are something major? Yes, and in the extremely early days of the early sixties the space program did have an effect on their development. They set the initial standards for temperature and mechanical stress that the IC makers had to meet, and also provided a small but steady market for them. It wasn't long, though, before the commercial market and the aerospace market diverged. The parts for military and space equipment needed to be radiation-resistant and extremely reliable, and that excluded the more advanced technologies. NASA landed men on the Moon using only resistor-transistor and diode-transistor logic, not even TTL. Last I heard they still relied on DTL for their electronics. Several generations have come and gone since DTL was introduced: regular TTL, PMOS, and enhancement-only NMOS. NASA is continually stuck with using obsolete parts because it takes so long to develop anything, and because its needs are so different from those of the mainstream markets. This last point is the major obstacle to spinoffs. A research program might develop something unique and innovative, but it rarely gains market acceptance because it is specialized to the needs of that program. The bottom line is that if you want your research to be of commercial value, it must be directed to commercial needs. Military and space work has commercial value largely by accident. Spending 20 billion dollars to put someone on the moon is going to put someone on the moon, and not necessarily do anything else. Spending 200 billion dollars to build orbital death rays is going to build orbital death rays, and not help us in the world-wide battle for industrial high-tech dominance. John Redford P.S. Well OK, there is one important exception to the above, and that is communication satellites. These were launched on modified ICBM's, and so would not have been possible without the missile program. The entire comsat industry is worth one or two billion a year. That's certainly not trivial, but it's not large either; beer and cosmetics are of similar size. Posted: Tue 19-Nov-1985 14:56 Jerusalem Local Time (GMT+2) To: RHEA::DECWRL::"space@mc"
rivero@kovacs.UUCP (Michael Foster Rivero) (11/22/85)
In article <8511191259.AA24626@decwrl.DEC.COM> redford@JEREMY.DEC (John Redford) writes: > >The commercial value of spinoffs is negligible. > >P.S. Well OK, there is one important exception to the above, and that >is communication satellites. These were launched on modified ICBM's, >and so would not have been possible without the missile program. The >entire comsat industry is worth one or two billion a year. That's >certainly not trivial, but it's not large either; beer and cosmetics >are of similar size. > >Posted: Tue 19-Nov-1985 14:56 Jerusalem Local Time (GMT+2) >To: RHEA::DECWRL::"space@mc" As Carl Sagen points out, Americans spend more on Pizza than on the Space Program. Admittedly, there is little DIRECT commercial return from the Space Program. Hopefully, the commercialization of space will change that over the next decade. The returns from Space research are exactly that. RESEARCH! There is a lot of research done on behalf of space that finds its way into industrial applications. In our company, we have several ex-space employees. A lot of the techniques and algorithms we use were learned during the "good old days" at NASA. There is also the return of pure knowledge, not to mention National image. Let's face it. The desire for knowledge did not get us to the moon. The desire to retake the lead in space from the Russians got the bucks for the Buck Rogers. As for SDI, there is one clear spinoff from the project. The need to hoist a lot of equipment into space will help drive the cost of delivery down. Just as the air war in WW2 helped set the technical stage for cheap passenger airlines (by underwriting a lot of the nuts and bolts technology), SDI's needs will help set the stage for cheap space travel. Example: Space Shuttles are very expensive, one-at-a-time vehicles built on a prototype basis. If the SDI were to decide it needed a lot of shuttles, then an assembly line would be funded, and the cost of the individual shuttles would drop to a point where private companies could afford them, especially at post-SDI-deployment surplus rates! Remember how many early airlines started with war-surplus aircraft? As an aside, if the external shuttle tanks were re-designed to ride all the way to orbit, they might make great pressurized bulk storage units that could be attached to a space station framework. You could vent the remaining propellants to vacuum, seal and pressurize the tank with an added airlock, and have an instant office space. With shuttles going up on a once a month basis during SDI, you would have a LOT of pressurized space at the end of every year. The point is, once we are fully in space, it can be made economical. It is the initial investment in getting there that is the "killer" and projects like SDI, whether politically valid or not (and the jury is still out on that one) are the most source of that investment. Michael Rivero
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (11/24/85)
> Frying pans are often cited as a trivial spinoff, but they are not even that. > Teflon was actually developed by Du Pont in the Fifties, long > before Apollo needed tough plastics with high melting points. Quite correct, commercial Teflon was basically a spinoff from the Manhattan Project, not the space program. The Manhattan Project did the original basic engineering needed to turn a laboratory curiosity discovered in the 30's into a useful material. DuPont finished it up for commercial use. Possibly the space program may have done some work on one of the Teflon variants (note that the original Teflon was not useful for frying pans, since it wouldn't stick to the pan!) and hence gotten the story started. > Surely, though, ICs are something major? Yes, and in the extremely > early days of the early sixties the space program did have an effect > on their development. Yes and no; ICs were a spinoff from ICBMs more than from the space program. > They set the initial standards for temperature > and mechanical stress that the IC makers had to meet, and also > provided a small but steady market for them. If you check, I think you will find that the original development of the first practical ICs was military-funded work for the Minuteman ICBM. So the government role was a bit more central than just being a demanding customer. > ... NASA landed men on the Moon using only > resistor-transistor and diode-transistor logic, not even TTL. Last I > heard they still relied on DTL for their electronics. Several > generations have come and gone since DTL was introduced: regular TTL, > PMOS, and enhancement-only NMOS. NASA is continually stuck with using > obsolete parts because it takes so long to develop anything, and > because its needs are so different from those of the mainstream > markets. Don't forget a couple of other major reasons: (1) NASA has been a little bit short of funds lately, and (2) NASA's reliability requirements are such that they can't risk using something hot out of the development groups. The latter is not unique to NASA; you'll find the same phenomenon in any environment where major mistakes are unacceptable. The Bell System invented the transistor, but it was a good many years before solid-state electronics showed up in telephone switching systems. When your equipment is supposed to work for 40 years, you *can't* use a part in critical applications until a good reliability database has been built up for it. NASA landed men on the Moon using old IC technologies because most of the Apollo hardware was designed in the early 60's, before TTL. Remember the lead times involved; Apollo incorporated new technologies only in areas where it didn't require serious redesign. Apollo hardware had to be ready to *fly* in about 1967, which meant that a lot of decisions had to be made very early indeed to permit adequate development and testing. For example, the VAB is bigger than it needed to be for the Saturn V, because the size of the building had to be fixed before anyone was sure how big the booster would be. For another example, the Apollo SM engine was powerful enough to lift the CSM off the surface of the moon, because its specs were fixed too early for anyone to be sure that this would be unnecessary. Remember that NASA was running final tests for the first Apollo flight, with the lunar landing (optimistically) hoped to follow in a year or so, a total of six years after Apollo was ordered. A rather tight schedule, given that nearly every piece of hardware they used had to built from scratch. > ... A research > program might develop something unique and innovative, but it rarely > gains market acceptance because it is specialized to the needs of > that program... But the underlying technology is another story. Nobody is contending that the precise parts used for Apollo were good for much else. > The bottom line is that if you want your research to > be of commercial value, it must be directed to commercial needs. > Military and space work has commercial value largely by accident. If so, then there have been a lot of rather lucrative accidents. Enough to make them fairly predictable, in fact. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
space@ucbvax.UUCP (11/24/85)
Don't be so pessimistic! There are books full of spinoff descriptions available from NASA. REAL spinoff's, not the myth about teflon or the general push toward miniature components. For example, the environment used to sustain people with immune system deficiencies is a direct application of space suit technologies & clean rooms. Most of the spinoff's are small, technical advances that together can build up industries. The big advance coming now is direct manufacture in space.
dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (11/25/85)
I was interested in spinoffs, so a few years ago I sent away for one
of those (NASA) books. It was pitiful. The best spinoff they could point
to was ferrofluids, which are used in (among other things) magnetic disk
drives as a dust seal. Its worth maybe $100 million, tops.
> The big advance coming now is direct manufacture in space.
I am skeptical. There is not one product yet identified that is a good
bet for large scale space manufacturing. What about the drugs purified
with continuous flow electrophoresis? Don't bet on them: drugs can
be purified on earth using other techniques (for example, by affinity
chromatography in columns filled with monoclonal antibodies). What
about perfect crystals for semiconductors? When launch costs are
$50+/ounce that's unlikely to be economical (at least for silicon) and
we can expect continued improvements in earth-based crystal growing
techniques. The Japanese, for example, are growing crystals in
strong magnetic fields to reduce convection.eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (11/26/85)
Sorry, "ames" has been down over the weekend, and I had to go skiing.
NASA [note the caps] does not attempt to justify it's existence via
"spinoffs" although some of you may note that there is a publication
of this title. NASA's business is SPACE and AERONAUTICS, to almost
a blind ignorance of other technologies [materials science, computers,
etc.] Only when it is in their interest does NASA concern itself.
I wrote a brief thing describing the importance of thinking about living
in an age where Relativity and space travel are reality, [about two years
ago?] and I received a couple of comments about "more eliquoent (sp)
than Carl..." [Thanks, I'm not that good]. I said that spinoffs are not
the justification for any large research program. NASA does not [nor
does SDI for that matter] heavily justify spinoff.
I also want to make a comment about "Space Research." NASA, contrary
to popular believe, is NOT a research organization. It's an engineering
organization. I've had this told to me by high NASA management. I've
promised a SETI commentary, I have to get that to the net before I go
back East next week to NASA HQ.
Be seeing ya.
From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Research Center
{hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene
emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPArjnoe@riccb.UUCP (Roger J. Noe) (11/27/85)
> > The big advance coming now is direct manufacture in space. > > I am skeptical. There is not one product yet identified that is a good > bet for large scale space manufacturing. What about the drugs purified > with continuous flow electrophoresis? Don't bet on them: drugs can > be purified on earth using other techniques (for example, by affinity > chromatography in columns filled with monoclonal antibodies). I think the productivity of the CFES experiments has been something like four HUNDRED times that on Earth and may go higher. Also, what about the monodisperse latex reactor experiments with the uniform spheres? Can THAT be done on Earth? -- Roger Noe
john@frog.UUCP (John Woods, Software) (11/27/85)
> NASA [note the caps] does not attempt to justify it's existence via > "spinoffs" although some of you may note that there is a publication > of this title. NASA's business is SPACE and AERONAUTICS, to almost > a blind ignorance of other technologies [materials science, computers, > etc.] Only when it is in their interest does NASA concern itself. > > I wrote a brief thing describing the importance of thinking about living > in an age where Relativity and space travel are reality, [about two years > ago?] and I received a couple of comments about "more eliquoent (sp) > than Carl..." [Thanks, I'm not that good]. I said that spinoffs are not > the justification for any large research program. NASA does not [nor > does SDI for that matter] heavily justify spinoff. > It's always dangerous to argue about horses after the horse has spoken, but... I just received my first issue of "NASA Tech Briefs", a publication put out by NASA to tell the world what patents they have ripe for plucking. This is in addition to the publication Spinoffs, which (according to the blurb in the Tech Briefs) exists to tell about those patents which have been successfully plucked. (At least some portion of) NASA is quite aware of the benefits of spinoffs, and, at least as a practical matter, understand that when talking to Congress or businessmen, the best way to "justify" this "``huge'' expense" is to point out how much money their constituents/they stand to make because of it. However, I am tremendously glad that NASA tells their engineers to screw the spinoffs and get on with "SPACE and AERONAUTICS", like they are supposed to. When NASA speaks to me, their justification comes from missions, not Velcro. And I'm a satisfied customer! -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA Out of my way, I'm a scientist! War of the Worlds
andrew@cadomin.UUCP (Andrew Folkins) (11/29/85)
In article <8511251310.AA17146@s1-b.arpa> dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) writes: >> The big advance coming now is direct manufacture in space. > >I am skeptical. There is not one product yet identified that is a good >bet for large scale space manufacturing. Powersats. How much is ten gigawatts of installed electrical capacity worth today? Next question, how much would it cost to fuel comparable coal, oil, or nuclear powered generators over a twenty-plus year lifetime? I'll admit that these things may not be feasible to build today, but in fifty years, Powersat Inc. is going to be high up in the Fortune 500. O'Neill's figures in _The High Frontier_ gave **exponentially** growing revenues once the program got going. For an investment of $10 billion/year for 20 years, revenue was $100 billion/year by year 25. The initial investment included major space stations and lunar bases. Once the infrastructure is in place, the powersats themselves can be built very cheaply - the energy (solar) and materials (lunar) are free. Now, back to the real world . . .
john@anasazi.UUCP (John Moore) (11/29/85)
In article <8511191259.AA24626@decwrl.DEC.COM> redford@JEREMY.DEC (John Redford) writes: > > There's been a lot of talk recently about spinoffs of high-tech >government programs, particularly in regard to SDI. I'd like to get >some discussion going on this, because it's a commonly used argument >both for SDI and the space program in general. Let me start with a >blanket statement: > >The commercial value of spinoffs is negligible. > >program might develop something unique and innovative, but it rarely >gains market acceptance because it is specialized to the needs of >that program. The bottom line is that if you want your research to >be of commercial value, it must be directed to commercial needs. Somehow I find the logic of this argument a bit extreme. Since any advanced weapons research involves learning things, sometimes very basic things, it is similar to scientific research (often indistinguishable). So, if it is not commercially worthwhile, then neither is scientific research. Lets drop all funding of scientific research - since it is not directed at producing commercial results, it will rarely be useful! Picking on a couple of wrong examples is a tried and true debaters trick, but it doesn't prove anything. So 747's and teflon aren't exactly spinoffs - does it follow that there are no spinoffs? Finally, lets look a bit harder for spinoffs. Example: the National Security Agency, back in the 50's and 60's, was a pioneer in computer technology. The IBM Stretch was built to their specifications. The spinoff from this was experience and engineering details used by IBM to advance the state of the art (please, no flames about 360's, I don't like 'em either). I have no doubt whatsoever that military research into advanced communications systems has contributed to commercial communications. Motorolla Government Systems Division is here in Phoenix, and it is constantly emitting spinoff companies where those engineers who learned the state of the art in military systems are applying it to civilian systems where they perceive the opportunity for greater profit. The same is true around any weapons research facility. Another case of spinoff is amateur radio. Much pioneering work in such technologies as FM and SSB was first done by amateurs for non-commercial motives. Packet radio is in that stage now. Nevertheless, the SPINOFF from this work is used worldwide commercially. >P.S. Well OK, there is one important exception to the above, and that >is communication satellites. These were launched on modified ICBM's, >and so would not have been possible without the missile program. The Only ONE important exception? Finally, let's keep this in mind. The purpose of a weapons development project is to protect the freedom without which all the rest of these considerations are meaningless. Rarely can one be justified solely on the basis of spinoffs. However, the spinoff potential is really there and can create surprising benefits. -- John Moore (NJ7E/XE1HDO) {decvax|ihnp4|hao}!noao!terak!anasazi!john {hao!noao|decvax|ihnp4|seismo}!terak!anasazi!john terak!anasazi!john@SEISMO.CSS.GOV (602) 952-8205 (day or evening) 5302 E. Lafayette Blvd, Phoenix, Az, 85018 (home address)
john@anasazi.UUCP (John Moore) (11/29/85)
In article <380@anasazi.UUCP> john@anasazi.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >In article <8511191259.AA24626@decwrl.DEC.COM> redford@JEREMY.DEC (John Redford) writes: >> >> There's been a lot of talk recently about spinoffs of high-tech And I wrote lots of reply. However, I forgot to mention two instances of spinoff which I am personally involved in. I used to work at a company which did Command and Control simulations for the US Navy. In the process of this work, we developed a sophisticated simulator program. At some point in this work, the USC Medical Center in Los Angeles discovered that they had serious control problems in their Emergency Room and Outpatient Clinic. They hired us to do the operations research necessary to identify and correct these problems. Our military OR work, and specifically that simulator, were then used to solve their problems quite successfully. I know a researcher in the radar field who has worked on FM military remote sensing radars. He is now adapting that technology to geological, mining and other commercial fields. These may be little spinoffs, but multiply them by a few million engineers and you get a lot of spinoffs. Just because you cannot point to more than one BIG spinoff doesn't mean that the spinoff of all of that military work isn't there. I would maintain that a large part of the training and experience now in commercial high-tech fields is a DIRECT result of military work. -- John Moore (NJ7E/XE1HDO) {decvax|ihnp4|hao}!noao!terak!anasazi!john {hao!noao|decvax|ihnp4|seismo}!terak!anasazi!john terak!anasazi!john@SEISMO.CSS.GOV (602) 952-8205 (day or evening) 5302 E. Lafayette Blvd, Phoenix, Az, 85018 (home address)
eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (11/29/85)
> >I am skeptical. There is not one product yet identified that is a good > >bet for large scale space manufacturing. > > Powersats. How much is ten gigawatts of installed electrical capacity > worth today? > . . . > in fifty years, Powersat Inc. is going to be high up in the Fortune 500. > I'm skeptical..... Let me point out one thing which was suggested and pointed out by two visiting sources: Hans Mark when he was #2 man and another speaker. At this time, the people who have the most experience in this area are the Soviet and the Japanese (yes!). In fact, the Japanese have made a very interesting proposal to supply power to the US space station using a scaled-down version of microwave technology. The effort is being pushed as an international effort. If this is the case, it's not clear to me that a clear picture exists. Again, let me point out the Soviet have used GaAs technology in their arrays. --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center {hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA
dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (11/30/85)
> I think the productivity of the CFES experiments has been something like > four HUNDRED times that on Earth and may go higher. Also, what about the > monodisperse latex reactor experiments with the uniform spheres? Can > THAT be done on Earth? The production rate of CFES is 400x higher than CFES done on earth, not 400x better than other techniques. Ortho Pharmaceutical, which was Mcdonnell-Douglas's partner in the project, has pulled out, saying they can now purify the drugs as cheaply on earth. Also the 400x better is raw production rates, not cost of the final product. The latex reactor is why I said "large scale" space manufacturing. It was a one-shot run of a speciality product with very limited demand.
dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (12/01/85)
>>> The big advance coming now is direct manufacture in space. >> >>I am skeptical. There is not one product yet identified that is a good >>bet for large scale space manufacturing. > ihnp4!alberta!cadomin!andrew@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Andrew Folkins) writes: >Powersats. ... Of course. I was refering to products that can be made using NASA's LEO space station. Sorry I didn't make that clear.
dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (12/03/85)
It really isn't fair to say that a research program has nothing to do with a discovery if bringing that discovery to commercial use requires an additional N billion dollars (far exceeding the cost of the research program). A serendipitous discovery can be quite cheap, and serves more of a trailblazing function. This kind of discovery, however, might better be stimulated by basic research. I just thought of another spinoff from the space program: cryogenics. NASA had to develop a lot of the technology for manipulating liquid hydrogen in bulk. Today we see liquid hydrogen tank trucks on the highways, but several decades ago LH was a real engineering nightmare. Liquid hydrogen handling technology could have considerable spinoff potential if LH fueled SST's are built (although since NASA is involved in aeronautics, it's not clear this would count as a spinoff).
dave@quest.UUCP (David Messer) (12/06/85)
> I was interested in spinoffs, so a few years ago I sent away for one > of those (NASA) books. It was pitiful. The best spinoff they could point > to was ferrofluids, which are used in (among other things) magnetic disk > drives as a dust seal. Its worth maybe $100 million, tops. You're right. It is pitiful that that was all they came up with. What about modern computers for instance? > > > The big advance coming now is direct manufacture in space. > > I am skeptical. There is not one product yet identified that is a good > bet for large scale space manufacturing. ... How about solar power satellites? Communications? Weather prediction? > What > about perfect crystals for semiconductors? When launch costs are > $50+/ounce that's unlikely to be economical ... Do you realize how many semiconductor chips you can make out of an ounce of perfect silicon crystals? $50/ounce is an inconsequential cost for such a product. -- David Messer UUCP: ...ihnp4!quest!dave ...ihnp4!encore!vaxine!spark!14!415!sysop FIDO: 14/415 (SYSOP)
carroll@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU (12/07/85)
There's also the case where one of the first graphics house's (a company that produces computer graphics) got it's start in the military. They had been doing studies on radiation penetration (mostly neutrons) of various objects, when it occurred to them that if they just changed the system to dealing with light, the whole thing would do really good shaded 3-D images. Not very major, but just one more thing in the series.
jmpiazza@sunybcs.UUCP (Joseph M. Piazza) (12/09/85)
In article <380@anasazi.UUCP> john@anasazi.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >In article <8511191259.AA24626@decwrl.DEC.COM> redford@JEREMY.DEC (John Redford) writes: >> >>The commercial value of spinoffs is negligible. >> >>program might develop something unique and innovative, but it rarely >>gains market acceptance because it is specialized to the needs of >>that program. The bottom line is that if you want your research to >>be of commercial value, it must be directed to commercial needs. > >So, if it is not commercially worthwhile, then neither is scientific >research. Lets drop all funding of scientific research - since it is >not directed at producing commercial results, it will rarely be useful! > I recall local firm here in Western New York that designed and manufactured a component for the shuttle was able to market a product based on that component (a small motor, I believe). The point here is that the company was producing a product (and jobs) that it would NOT have if it wasn't for the shuttle program, which esentially served to subsidize the component's design making the step towards marketing it was a very small one. joe piazza
EINAUDI@ICNUCEVM.BITNET (02/12/86)
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Date: TUESDAY 11 Feb 1986 21:22:16 SET
From: Alessandro Berni <>
(Tel +(39)10-6859290)
To: SPACE@ANGBAND
Subject: About Spinoffs
I don't believe there should be particular problems for sending copies of
NASA's Spinoffs book.
I received myself a couple of years ago a copy of the corrent issue from
the public affairs office at JSC without asking for it precisely.
May i suggest (in case there are no more copies left at the public affairs
office) to contact:
Director, Technology Utilization and Industrial Affairs Division.
P.O. Box 8757
Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
Maryland 21240
Alessandro Berni
Genoa, Italy.