"You want what we have? Let's make a deal!"

NASA and its commercial partners develop a wide variety of cutting edge technologies. Would you expect much else from nine centers filled with more than 18,000 employees? That much brain power focused on the black unknown is bound to produce some pretty awesome ideas, inventions, and technologies, even if NASA doesn’t always have the money or support to fully develop and utilize the technologies. In fact, NASA has over 1,000 patents and patent applications covering a plethora of technology areas. NASA has been directed to promote rapid development and commercialization of technologies it develops via commercial partnerships. What happens when NASA doesn’t have the resources to implement a new technology it has developed? NASA offers these inventions to the public via its Patent Licensing Program (PLP).

Well known companies such as Bigelow Aerospace have been founded on technologies licensed through this program. Click through to learn more about the process of accessing NASA-developed technologies as a private enterprise. Read the rest of this entry »