NASA Center Reaches Out Across the Miles to Area Firms

Like the cryogenic wind tunnel, which creates wind speeds that easily exceed 800 miles per hour. It has been used by jet manufacturers to test the strength of aircrafts' material. Liquid nitrogen is used to condense air molecules to better mimic real-world air currents.

Using the massive tunnel comes at a steep price. To test its equipment in the facility, a company typically pays $4,200 an hour, and that doesn't include the cost of gasoline -- at a rate of $3,000 a minute -- and electricity. It takes one-eighth of a nuclear reactor's energy to run the tunnel's 135,000-horsepower engine.

To demonstrate how liquid nitrogen works, a NASA employee showed a few science experiments by shrinking a balloon and popping the lid off a tennis ball container.

"I feel like I'm back in high school," quipped Del. G. Glenn Oder (R-Newport News). Virginia legislators were also there for the center's inaugural General Assembly day.

Sparking an interest in science and math education was another purpose of the trip, said Duffy Mazan, a serial entrepreneur and chief executive of Arlington-based Performedia, which provides online video services to companies. Local companies can't find enough engineers to fill job openings.

"We're always looking for ways to load the educational pipeline with young people who are interested in science and technology," he said.

Getting companies acquainted with NASA's research is just as challenging as making sure investors and firms are aware of the innovation happening on college campuses, Mazan said.

"There's all kinds of research, some that could be commercialized," he said. "Companies could be funding that research to get intellectual property."

Del. John A. Cosgrove (R-Chesapeake) said he was glad to see Washington area companies show an interest in the activity occurring in other parts of the state, adding that getting Northern Virginia firms involved elsewhere will benefit the entire state.

"Northern Virginia is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to tech," he said. "It's the template the rest of us are trying to replicate."

Del. Joe T. May (R-Loudoun) helped organize the General Assembly tour to educate lawmakers and businesses about NASA's capabilities. Owner of Sterling engineering firm EIT, May found out about the research happening in Hampton when he met a former NASA researcher on the job. He calls NASA "one of those out-in-the-open secrets."

The visit doesn't guarantee any partnerships will be made. Loren Burnett, chief executive of StackSafe, a Vienna company that tests IT software systems, said he didn't immediately see ways his firm could work with NASA.

"Overall I thought it was a very positive trip, but there weren't a great deal of specific business opportunities," he said.

Mazan, however, said he saw obvious ways a start-up could capitalize on NASA's research. At one point on the tour, he noticed a giant globe that doubled as a digital projector, made by Global Imagination, a firm in California.

"It wasn't a Virginia company," he said, "but it could just as easily have been a Virginia company."

Kim Hart writes about the region's technology scene every other Monday.