Location
Howard Johnson Plaza-Hotel, Columbia/ Enterprise Rooms
Start Date
28-4-1994 2:00 PM
End Date
28-4-1994 5:00 PM
Description
For years the space community has visited schools and civic organizations to discuss the U.S. Space Program and the resulting benefits to life on earth. We spoke about weather and communications satellites, material and medical research and man's desire to explore. This all sounded great, but in our own minds, we knew that generally aerospace contractors were not spending their technology resources developing commercial products.
Well, things have changed. The defense budget is shrinking, NASA is struggling to keep current programs afloat, and technology funding is virtually non-existent. So what do we do with all of these very talented engineers and all this great technology? Should we venture into the unknown and search for earth bound applications for our unique and somewhat specialized technology or should we just accept the inevitable and downsize? Where do we I o o How do we market these products? Can we be cost competitive? Challenging technical problems came looking for us, now we have to go looking for them.
These are the questions we in the aerospace community have been asking ourselves over the last few years. Moog, Inc. decided to take the first step and look for new product opportunities. One broadbased technical individual with management experience was assigned to pursue these potential opportunities. Trade shows, with unrelated space technology, etc. were the first stop on the agenda. Moog was pleasantly surprised to find new opportunities; and ironically, some opportunities came to Moog. Several new products are presently under development throughout the corporation. Following are two examples of Moog's adaptability from the space market to the commercial market.
Paper Session III-B - Space Technology Benefits Life on Earth
Howard Johnson Plaza-Hotel, Columbia/ Enterprise Rooms
For years the space community has visited schools and civic organizations to discuss the U.S. Space Program and the resulting benefits to life on earth. We spoke about weather and communications satellites, material and medical research and man's desire to explore. This all sounded great, but in our own minds, we knew that generally aerospace contractors were not spending their technology resources developing commercial products.
Well, things have changed. The defense budget is shrinking, NASA is struggling to keep current programs afloat, and technology funding is virtually non-existent. So what do we do with all of these very talented engineers and all this great technology? Should we venture into the unknown and search for earth bound applications for our unique and somewhat specialized technology or should we just accept the inevitable and downsize? Where do we I o o How do we market these products? Can we be cost competitive? Challenging technical problems came looking for us, now we have to go looking for them.
These are the questions we in the aerospace community have been asking ourselves over the last few years. Moog, Inc. decided to take the first step and look for new product opportunities. One broadbased technical individual with management experience was assigned to pursue these potential opportunities. Trade shows, with unrelated space technology, etc. were the first stop on the agenda. Moog was pleasantly surprised to find new opportunities; and ironically, some opportunities came to Moog. Several new products are presently under development throughout the corporation. Following are two examples of Moog's adaptability from the space market to the commercial market.
Comments
Products
Session Chairman: Robert Stark, Director, Far West Regional Technology Transfer Center, Los Angeles, CA
Session Organizer: Rachel H. Webb, Lockheed Space Operations Company, Kennedy Space Center, FL