From memory foam mattresses to the little upturned wing tips on airplanes and beyond, technology transfer from NASA’s labs has given commercial industry some iconic inventions.
But while the agency overall has some good policies and processes in place for encouraging this flow of ideas, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., struggles. This is the takeaway of a recent audit by NASA’s inspector general, which found that compared to other NASA centers, lack of communication between Goddard’s Technology Transfer Office and its Office of Patent Counsel “hindered” the center’s tech transfer process.
