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JPL Begins Commercialization
An anonymous reader writes "JPL has always been concerned with how their work has benefitted society and the Earth as a whole. Everything from developing tools to study what causes El Nino/La Nina to helping find sources of pollution in our environment. In an effort to continue their work while decreasing their burden on NASA's budget, JPL will introduce the JPL Commercialization Center. This means they will begin developing relationships with commercial entities to adapt their technologies for public use. The public benefit is two-fold since licensing fees will help ease NASA and taxpayer burden and life-enchancing technologies will be put into public use."
If JPL can generate some real income, I don't see the boys in DC letting it go for what it was intended. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to see upper level management at JPL use the extra income to fund pet projects of their own rather that using it as intended. I can only hope that somehow I will be wrong. Be the best mistake of my life! ;)
You must be the change you wish to see in the world - Ghandi
Some people may complain that commercializing aspects of the JPL is questionary, but the sad fact is that congress, in its infinite wisdom, does not see fit to provide NASA and JPL with the money they really need. I'm afraid this is probably a necessary move, but perhaps in the end it will be a positive thing.
Personally, I'd like to see NASA as a whole be able to commercialize to some degree to help offset the lack of funding. I'd like to see NASA receive more funding. The money it will cost to pick a fight with Iraq would go a long way at NASA. Hell, it would go a long way to feed a lot of nations, but what can you do other than vote and protest.
So, I've paid for all this technology to be developed with my tax dollars. So now if I want to use it for some project, I've got to pay the government for the right to use it?????
-k
JPL is run by Caltech (a school) for NASA. I doubt that Caltech would be able to sweep that much money under the rug, or divert it for other uses, without massive outcry.
Just because JPL is going commercial doesn't (necessarily) mean that all their decisions will be of the secret star chamber CEO-screws-the-world type. They will be in the public eye more than ever, over precisely these concerns.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I'm not sure that I agree with you when you say "It makes it seem like the US Post Office and AOL are somehow in cahoots." AOL has paid the post office money in order to rent some space in there buildings to advertise for their service. The post office certainly is not endorsing AOL. They are just taking the opportunity to make some money off them by allowing them to advertise within their walls.
Here's a situation for you, when you go to a sporting event and you see a billboard for "Budwiser" is that sports team that you came to see endorsing that beer? Or is the stadium just simply increasing the amount of money that they can make by renting some space out that would otherwise be empty?
One more for you, everyday the post office delivers you a whole bunch of mail, your tv guide, electric bill, and a Fredricks of Hollywood catalog for your girlfriend. Now the post office delivered it to you, so does that mean they are endorsing Fredricks of Hollywood and more specificly your raunchy imagination?
JPL has always farmed out new technology to private industry. Its our secondary charter just under our NASA work. From what I've read of the press report linked, this just seems to be a re-organization and re-focus of the old Technology Affiliates Program. I've worked primarily for non-NASA reimbursable projects. In the 10 years I've worked at JPL, I've only charged to a NASA number ONCE. And then only for a summer. A reimbursable project is when an outside organinzation pays JPL (through NASA) to do work for for them, and they get something in return, like a research paper, technology, or a piece of hardware. JPL will do the work, and then will get reimbursed by the company at completion, IIRC.
As an example of some of the work either I, or my co-workers have done under the TAP-like programs include things like systems, hardware, and behavior software for autonomous urban robots like Urbie under DARPA. Ford has funded my group to develop hardware for Engine Control, Emission Control, and diagnostics using Neural Networks. 3-Dimensional IC stacks with Irvine Sensors Corporation for novel Neural Network architectures. Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors (QWIP) imagers by various companies. Active Pixel Sensors (APS, buzword category: CMOS Imagers) has been licenced to private companies like Micron (formerly Photobit, before they were bought by Micron). Our Micro Devices Lab has farmed out a metric buttload of MEMS instruments and sensors to more companies than I can remember.
That said, JPL WILL NOT compete with private industry. We're not allowed to and it doesn't make sense to. We don't do manufuacturing or marketing. JPL does things that no-one else does. Once we figure out how to do something, we give it to someone else and figure out how to do something new. Since we are a Federally Funded Research and Development Center, it is unappropriate for us to steal business away from legitamate business. However it is appropriate for us to be in bleeding edge research areas that are still not financially or strategically desirable for private industry. The Government usually plays anchor tennant to most technolgies.
As a peon looking up, I can see why they've started to emphasize more on reimbursable projects. NASA and Congress is getting more and more fickle on what and when to pay for new projects. The next rover is finishing up soon (The Mars Exploration Rovers, or Mars '03) and work is rolling off. Everyone coming off MER is looking for new jobs and the project that was supposed to pick everyone up (Mars '05) was pushed back to '07. So the scare of layoffs is real amongst us. I'm actually in the same boat since my projects had the misfortune of ending at the same time MER did, so I'm competing with them. (I believe I've got my funding covered, but I'm in the gap at the moment taking vacation). I'm not the only one I know in my situation. If JPL can get more reimbursable projects, I believe JPL can better weather the whims of congress.
I am glad that JPL is re-emphasizing in comercialization. Although Space missions are fun, novel technology is much more satisfying to me. If we can get more industry to fund new technology, I believe the US will be much better off.
--Carlos V.
This would be catastrophic! The post office does not have to innovate, there is no profit in long term innovations in the aerospace industry (or execs are too focused on short term goals to acknowledge it...). NASA would eventually become another competitor for Boeing, Lockheed, Pratt & Whitney, and all of the other commercial aerospace companies in the US. Right now the aerospace industry relies on NASA to help them develop products on the distant horizon. They could not work with them nearly as effectively if NASA was out to sell the product themselves...
You don't see UPS and FedEx jumping at the opportunity to work with the USPS do you?
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Heh, my view of JPL is that they're a long way from pure. They seem to be as much or more an engineering-on-steroids shop than a research lab. And I think that's just what they need to be. As such, they're probably among the closest organizations in NASA to the commercial sector. JPL is in a good position to provide nearly-usable, nearly-mature technology to the relatively risk-adverse business sector.
It's not like they're selling JPL (which in fact is run by Caltech, and is not administered by the government). They're selling technology and services. That's fine with me.
Bonneville Power distributes energy from Army Core of Engineers dams to private power companies, and part of their mission as a federal organization is to keep the price as low as possible. As a result, the northwest has the cheapest electricity in nation. Furthermore, Bonneville doesn't get any tax money; their special federal privilege is to take loans from the US Treasury, which they have to pay back.
I'm sure there's plenty of other federal, state, and local governmental organizations providing services to people for a fee. For JPL to do this is an intelligent use of resources.
-Paul Komarek
One worry that I have about when this publicly funded organization joins up with the commercial sector: Do they start to focus on projects that can be turned into viable products sooner? Does their research start getting directed towards the more potentially lucrative products, at the expense of the projects that could change the way we live for the better?
I'm glad to see that this initiative is being taken, partially for the cool stuff that I'll be able to buy as a result of it, and also because getting more for our tax-dollars always appeals to me. I just hope this doesn't go the way of some of the university research facilities that have deals with corporations, patents/other exclusive rights in return for funding.
Hopefully any JPL commercialization doesn't work out the same way as the space shuttle. When someone pays beaucoup cash to send something up on the shuttle the money goes not back to NASA but instead goes back into the general fund. When someone pays to use the space shuttle Congress uses that cash to give themselves a raise or do whatever else they want. So not only is NASA given an insultingly tight budget but any money they make gets taken away from them.
Hopefully the federal part of JPL's charter won't suck all the cash out of commercialization. JPL has a ton of cool things they could license out to commercial ventures. It'd be a shame if NASA and CalTech don't get to see any of the returns.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Privatizing brings additional risks by bringing in too many people lacking in domain expertise. If enough MBAs get involved, research may disappear altogether from the top ten actual priorities. The late Henry Ford did not get rich from designing new cars, he got rich from mass production of millions of identical cars using one design. This works until there is a new design for a better car, but if you planned ahead the design is by your research program.
Their best chance to stay competitive in Aerospace would be to never go public. The CEO for Ikea goes into great detail about the advantages of not having share holders (even dumber than MBAs) interfering. Also, staying non-profit or not-for-profit ensures that any surplus is reinvested back into the company.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Let NASA commercialize their cutting-edge stuff but for crissake get NASA out of the launching business. Let them deploy probes to other planets, study the Earth and environment, develop advanced interplanetary propulsion concepts, build space habitats, study space medicine - but don't let them anywhere near the drawing board of a launch vehicle. Ground to LEO transport should be off-limits for NASA.
Cargo launch vehicles don't need to be cutting edge. They don't need to be advanced - they need to be dumb, big, reliable andcheap. Crew space taxis need to be ultra-reliable, small and relatively cheap. NASA is apparently incapable of achieving any of these goals.
Subsidizing shuttle payloads has nearly killed the private space industry. Instead of competing with it with tax dollars NASA should promote it by buying launch services.
See this report by Lt. Col. John R. London III to find the historical reasons for the cost of launching and how it can be drastically reduced.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.