The use of industry-government-university committees in technology planning: NACA experience relevant to more effective exploitation of NASA technology

摘要

The recognized, growing need to do a more effective job of commercializing America's great store of technology has stimulated more intensive exploration of what might be done. Increasingly, attention has been turned toward various efforts to tap the technology being developed in Federal laboratories or financed by Federal agencies. How can this technology be transferred and used Nearly 25 years of experience with NASA's formal technology utilization program has demonstrated the potential, but also the difficulty of such efforts. There is a general consensus that the more a potential user knows about a technology being developed, and has some human or institutional link to the place of development, the greater the assurance of successful transfer. One potential mode for facilitating technology transfer that NASA has yet to explore is the use of groups of well-qualified technical people from organizations that are potential users of NASA technology -- to provide systematic advice at the technical program planning stage on which technologies may have potential 'spinoff' or secondary use. NASA has an analog in its predecessor agency (the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics -- NACA) where broadly-based technical committees participated in the agency's planning process.