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NASA's Hampton, Va., Center Seeks Private Help for Moon, Mars Exploration

Posted on: Tuesday, 11 January 2005, 21:00 CST

Jan. 12--HAMPTON, Va. -- It's not easy to build a space ship that will carry humans to the moon and even Mars.

And with less government money available for research, NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton is looking to private industry for help.

About 100 people attended Langley's first Industry Day on Tuesday at the Radisson Hotel in Hampton, where Langley employees showed executives what they are working on with the hope of finding companies that can find a solution. It's a new tactic for Langley, which has long prided itself on doing most of its research in-house.

"We have some industry partners in some work we do, but the purpose of this is to find new partners," said Mark Saunders, director of space access and exploration programs at Langley.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is no longer directing money to specific programs. Now its 10 field centers must compete for funding from the agency. To offset costs and make a stronger bid, Langley wants to team up with private contractors when making research proposals.

While overall budgets have been scaled back, NASA is spending money in certain areas in which it has a schedule to meet. In 2008, the agency hopes to launch a robotic lunar orbiter. By 2010, it wants to land a robot on the moon. In 2011, the agency wants to test-launch the next-generation space vehicle in hopes of sending a crew up in it three years later. And by 2020, NASA hopes to send the vehicle to Mars.

Langley will play a significant role in building the spacecraft used to reach the moon and Mars, officials said.

"We want to be able to dig into our back pocket and pick out the right partner," said Robert L. Yang, manager of the small-business grant programs in Langley's technology commercialization program office. "We also hope those companies will think of us when opportunities arise."

Richard Lally, president of Oceana Sensor in Virginia Beach, would love to get his company's sensors on the next shuttle. He made the rounds, passed out his business card and maintained high hopes.

"If you don't see them at the last Industry Day, they forget about you pretty quickly," he said.

Ranji Vaidyanathan, manager of advanced materials at Advanced Ceramics Research Inc., came all the way from Tucson, Ariz., to meet Langley researchers and potential partners.

"The takeaway is, there are opportunities, and it's going to take a combination of NASA and big and small companies to achieve that," he said.

For Marty Kaszubowski, vice president of strategic development for CorMine LLC in Hampton, the coffee break was just as lucrative as the exhibit hall in terms of potential business deals.

While he's worked with NASA before as head of the Hampton Roads Technology Incubator, he's starting over with the young tech firm.

"It's very difficult for companies with no history with NASA to walk up and say, 'I want to do business with NASA,'" he said.

Two other NASA field centers, Ames Research Center in California and Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, have also held their own Industry Day. If this one is successful, Yang said, he'd like Langley to hold more .

"This should not be the book mobile that comes around once a year and then disappears," he said.

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(c) 2005, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Virginian-Pilot

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