NASA's Technology Transfer Continues To Be Uncoordinated
Right on schedule yesterday NASA LaRC posted 3 (not 2, not 4) of these Technology Transfer Opportunities.
– NASA Technology Transfer Opportunity: Thin High Contrast Targets for Ultralightweight Structures
– NASA Technology Transfer Opportunity: High Density Optical Storage System
– NASA Technology Transfer Opportunity: New Probe for Detecting Deep Flaws in Structures
Keith’s note: A week or so ago, I submitted some questions to NASA and Rich Atcliff at NASA LaRC was kind enough to send me a prompt reply. Among the questions I asked was “Why are there never more (or less) than 3?” Atcliff replied: “This is simply a matter of workforce available to respond to the opportunities. Three has worked out to be a reasonable number such that we can respond to the inquires in a timely way and not leave the potential customers waiting.”
My response: “In other words you actually have technology transfer info available to release but you will not release it other than 3 per week – and the reason being that you can only respond to more than three topics/week? What about all of the previously released tech transfer opportunities? There are certainly more than three of them. Do people not ask questions about those previously-released topics – and just the three you release every week? Or do they not see them because you only post them in the procurement pages and FedBizOpps (not the best way to reach business, the media, or the public, BTW) Have you ever stopped to consider that people do not ask about this stuff because they never see it?”
Of course, NASA Tech Briefs and NASA OCT pay no attention to things like this. NASA OCT has no link to NASA Tech Briefs. NASA Tech Briefs does not link to NASA OCT. Last week, I did a search of the source HTML code on the NASA Techbriefs home page. There are still no links whatsoever to anything at NASA.gov. Yet this page features the NASA logo. Baffling.
Uncoordinated Technology Transfer at NASA, earlier post
Every so often NASA posts things about “One NASA” and complying with the “Open” government requirements. But apparently this is just some sort of agency ritual. Nobody actually does anything to comply. If I lived in the US, I just might go to NASA HQ, as a private company, with a proposal to do information collection and cross-referencing, which would then be presented on one indexed and browsable web site. I would not simply upload all the files and provide a site search engine, since it’s been years since search engines were effective. These days, they are just the only option available, but none of them, including Google! work as advertised.
If all of the archived and new data from NASA (plus all the useful stuff hidden away on one person’s bookshelf) was accessible and easy to find in one place, it would be a resource unmatched by anything else on the planet. Of course, if NASA were to agree to setting up such a system, they’d no doubt do it cost plus, so it would take approximately the age of the solar system to finish and cost 20 times what it need cost. But then again, the money allocations for it would be cut off long before it was well under way, so I guess the cost and time required don’t really matter.
Seriously, though, I think it would be a project well worth doing. With a little bit of thought, items could be categorized and rated, and there is the option of charging for hard copies. Ideally, it would be divided into internal and external sections, where the external is available to anyone via internet.
Steve
What about questions about previous weeks? Come on, man. The answer is obvious. Most inquiries are going to be on the most recent postings. They might get questions on older postings, but those will be at such a low rate as to be inconsequential. What matters are the current week’s postings.