NASA staff members outline agency's future needs

UTICA - Robots that can think for themselves are just figments of over-active, Star Wars-infused imaginations, right?

Not exactly. Researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are working on making those fantasies realities right now.

A group of NASA staff members

"Many of those things that are envisioned in science fiction are things we need," said Julie Loftis, assistant chief for technology of the information and systems division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Local company leaders spent the morning listening to presentations from some of Goddard's leading researchers. The NASA staff tailored their talks to areas in which the attending companies could help, including robotics, information technology, and sensors.

The idea was to help local companies see where they might fit into NASA's plans and plant the seeds that could lead to future partnerships. The Center for Technology Commercialization (CTC), NASA's Northeast Regional Technology Transfer Center, sponsored the event.

"They have tons of money," U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-24th District) said of NASA. "The question is how do you get in line. You can't just say we make the best product in the world, come buy from us. It's a little more complicated than that."

After the presentations, companies spent the afternoon meeting with NASA staff one-on-one. Several speakers highlighted the importance of building-relationships in securing partnerships with large government agencies.

"You can't do it with a Web site and an e-mail," said Don McAlister, deputy director of the CTC.

Goddard currently has 42 satellite-based missions in orbit, including the Hubble Space Telescope. The center has a budget of $2.5 billion and employs 9,000.

Its missions focus on researching Earth, the solar system, and the rest of the universe. Some of its planned missions will support the president's call for a human return to the moon and manned exploration of Mars.

Many of those missions will depend heavily on advanced robotics - an area, speakers said, where upstate New York companies could be a big help. The type of robotics needed for space missions rely on expert software, sensors, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and more.

Researchers at Goddard envision robots working side-by-side with each other and humans, a reality that is now impossible because robots are dangerous, speakers said.

"They'll hit you," Goddard's Loftis said. "They don't know you're there. We need to change that."

The agency is working on developing robots that are more autonomous from their human operators back on Earth, Loflis said. Because of the communications lag present in transmitting instructions from Earth to space, robots need to be able to react independently.

They need to be able, to avoid collisions with other robots, objects, and humans in space. Even a bump from a robot can seriously damage equipment or injure humans, Loftis said.

"They need to be able to make decisions based on high-level goals humans give them," she said. "We're going to need them to be able to react immediately in some situations."

The list of technologies required for those capabilities is long, NASA staff said. Everything from the software that runs the robots to the sensors that help them perceive their environment needs more work.

That does not mean contracts are just flying out the door however. Goddard, like all NASA agencies, is selective about its private partners.

"I often hear questions about where the money is and how do I get my hands on it. This is not meant to be a jobs program," said Peter Hughes, chief technologist at Goddard's technology management office. "This is meant to be a partnership where we both come to the table with resources."

Still the potential benefits of partnerships are substantial for both NASA and private industry, said Nona Cheeks, chief of the office of technology transfer at Goddard. For NASA, private companies provide solutions to problems. Technology developed by NASA, in turn, can be applied to private companies and help them succeed.

"We realize that there are technologies out there, that with some minor tweaking could meet our needs," Cheeks said. "We also recognize that there are already technologies out there that we should be utilizing now."