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."

Comments

NASA

[jchawk]

Any commercialization of NASA research or technology is a *good thing*. NASA needs to go the route the post office went aka let NASA run like a business, but still be able to receive some funding from the government when it's needed. It's just not working anymore with the current setup (allocate fixed amount of funding every year). If you allow NASA to begin making money then they can further their research and development, they can plan more missions, and maybe just maybe we'll get to mars sometime in our life time.

An added bonus, is maybe we can further kindle the private sector space exploration spark.

Re:NASA

[JudasBlue]

A sporting event isn't a government office, straight up. You think we should start selling that little logo behind Fleischer in those Whitehouse press breifings? Maybe make it a green screen like at ball parks so they can change the logo as he talks about different things?

I personally feel that when you are dealing with government offices, a slightly different set of basic rules apply than when dealing with straight commercial entities.

That said and back on the main topic, I am all about the JPL working with commercial entities, but appearing to endorse them just feels a little creepy to me, even if the USPO definitely needs the money and I understand why they are doing it.

Plus, I just don't like anyone handing out AOL in general. I would rather hand out a CD full of virii. Oh, wait, basically the same thing...

JPL.com?

[coupland]

While I fully support non-profit organizations seeking public money I can't help but feel a bit violated by this.

JPL is one of the last vestigates of "pure" science now that every other institute has sold out for cellular satellites, titties in space, and singings fags on the Space Center.

If JPL sells out to the highest bidder then surely Linus or the GPL is next!

Re:JPL.com?

[freshmkr]

I worked there last summer.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's an "engineering on steroids" shop. There's plenty of research that goes on there, from earth sciences to observation of space to novel robot research (PDF).

I think there are two big reasons JPL may seem like more of an engineering shop. First, JPL and NASA are under pressure to demonstrate their relevance to Congress and the American public, and the more practical works are easier to relate in this way. Second of all, the highest profile, most expensive projects (e.g. MER) tend to use proven, existing technologies, making it looks like JPL focuses more on application than development. This is not actually the case--the science just gets less press.

ObSelfLink: I have lots of pictures of the JPL and robots I met there here.

--Tom

Budget cuts suck.

[Loudergood]

Heh, the problem I have with NASA is that congress doesnt let there be enough of a taxpayer burden.

I'm an ex-NASA employee because of Com. office

[Anonymous Coward]

I resigned from NASA 3 years ago because of the Com office. Nothing could be more anti-GPL or in general more plain Evil. My co-workers and I were always wanting to release things GPL, but the Com. office always wanted to try to sell it. On the extremely rare cases in which some bought something it was always from the exclusive rights for like 10 years for like $20k. This is a 100% rip-off for the Tax payer and only provides enough funding to keep Com. office going and holding hostage the rest of the Tech. (lots of s/w) that no-one else would pay for, but would be very nice additions to the Free software world

When we would press them on the issue then they'd say it was National Security and we can't violate Export restrictions by releasing it GPL. What crap.

BTW, all of NASA outside of JPL hates JPL. If they has a success it's was all JPL, when screwed things up it was NASA (not JPL). They suck down lots of NASA funding.

Truth is, all the rest of NASA's money goes to Manned space program contractors. NASA has no money left to do any advanced research so there's nothing really left to commericalize. It seem like a good place to write Free software, but the damn com. office made sure that wasn't the case.

Point is, the NASA com. office is a major enemy of Free Software and everyone should realized this. Tell your congressmen that the American public shouldn't have to pay twice for software written on their dollar.

Great plan

[deblau]

Current system:

• No one can afford to get into space because the technology is too expensive.

System after JPL privatization:

• No one can afford to get into space because the licensing fees for the technology are too expensive.

At least under the current system, NASA IP immediately enters the public domain. Which is why contests like the X Prize can even get "off the ground", so to speak. With this move, any new tech developed would almost immediately be patented, and you can kiss all your dreams of space goodbye, as the lawyers get involved and we argue for 50 years. What have we gained? New tech, but only for a few people, and that handful of people gets to decide the future of space exploration (or they sue you). Some plan.

In a perfect world, I'd take all of NASA private (along with a lot of the rest of the government bloat), but this isn't that world.