Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Craft, Harry G., Jr..
This document is the transcription of the Spacelab Design and Systems Engineering Panel's discussion of the Spacelab program. It includes information on Spacelab's origin and development. The panel includes Klaus Berge, Bob Benson, Allan Thirkettle, and Harry Craft.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA has historically had to develop new technology to meet its mission objectives. The newly developed technologies have then been transferred to the private sector to assist US industry's worldwide competitiveness and thereby spur the US economy. The renewed emphasis by the US Government on a proactive technology transfer approach has produced a number of contractual vehicles that assist technology transfer to industrial, aerospace and research firms. NASA's focus has also been on leveraging the shrinking space budget to accomplish "more with less." NASA's cooperative agreements and resource sharing agreements are measures taken to achieve this goal, and typify the changing role of government technology development and transfer with industry. Large commercial partnerships with aerospace firms, as typified by the X-33 and X-34 Programs, are evolving. A new emphasis on commercialization in the Small Business Innovative Research and Dual Use programs paves the way for more rapid commercial application of new technologies developed for NASA.
It is appropriate that NASA's Office of Space Science and Application's science management structures and processes that have proven successful on Spacelab be applied and extrapolated to Space Station utilization, wherever practical. Spacelab has many similarities and complementary aspects to Space Station Freedom. An understanding of the similarities and differences between Spacelab and Space Station is necessary in order to understand how to transition from Spacelab to Space Station. These relationships are discussed herein as well as issues which must be dealt with and approaches for transition and evolution from Spacelab to Space Station.