NASA Announces 120 Small Research Projects

eldavojohn writes "NASA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) has released a list of the winning businesses that submitted research proposals in 2006. This is the second phase of a three phase award system and NASA has announced the winners. If you click on any of the projects, there is an interesting writeup of the proposal and technical abstract."

Comments

Re:about time!

[riffraff]

I used to work for a company at JSC that got SBIR's. I used to think the same thing, but what happens is that even if a project is canceled, they use all the information learned from the project to further other projects. So even projects that aren't "finished" are at least useful.

Usually.

Then write your congresscritter!

[GuyMannDude]

So, stuff like this that touches the private sector is always good. Government contracts can keep a small private R&D company in business. Enabling technological competition is a good idea as long as it's done without prejudice. All the problems that were proposed are specific concise things, which is good in that it eliminates the bureaucracy of a large complex project. NASA may have it's problems, but I feel fine spending my tax dollars on this.

Disclaimer: I work for one of the companies that won two awards listed on the website.

If you like the idea of your tax dollars going to smaller companies, then please let your congressional representative know! The SBIR program has been targeted in recent years by lawmakers who feel that it's a waste of money. Just as worrisome, in the last month they managed to fast-track the passing of a bill letting a "small" company owned by a venture capital firm compete for SBIR dollars. The whole point of the SBIR program was to provide funding for small, innovative firms that didn't have deep pockets.

The SBIR program has become very competitive in the last few years and it's not surprising that big-money is looking for ways to grab that away from smaller, independent companies. If you like the idea of your tax dollars supporting lean, innovative companies, please let your rep know. The SBIR program is a valuable source of funding to allow small companies to develop technology that will let them one day compete with the sluggish, established behemoths (e.g., Microsoft).

GMD