Potomac was recently honored to be included in NASA’s Technology Day on the Hill, an annual event that showcases the latest transformational technologies that have resulted from NASA funding. In addition to one half-dozen congressional lawmakers and almost 300 Hill staffers, our President and CEO, Mike Adelstein, had the distinct pleasure of meeting NASA Director Charles Bolden. “It was great to meet Director Bolden,” Mike explained, “since so much of our company’s success is tied back to R&D funded by NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research {SBIR} program”.
The event is meant to demonstrate how companies in the private sector have used NASA grants and contracts to develop technologies to drive innovation of commercial products. NASA leadership and others were impressed by the wide range of industries that were impacted by our laser micromachining research NASA funded in the early 1990’s. Potomac’s high-resolution digital fabrication work has found technical solutions for medical devices, biotech, healthcare, microfluidics, energy, consumer products, sensors and microelectronics.
NASA Chief Technologist David Miller and Associate Administrator for Space Technology Steve Jurczyk were featured in the formal part of the April 29 program. With Mars exploration on the horizon, NASA is hoping to demonstrate to Congress that space exploration benefits humans back on earth. “Technology puts new tools in the tool boxes of engineers so they can design the missions we need,” Miller said. But as we have seen at Potomac, these same technologies are needed for next generation products, many of which are critical to healthcare and quality of life for patients.
Steve Jurczyk also talked about the importance of 3-D printing, a technology that Potomac now incorporates with laser micromachining. “3D printing is advancing very rapidly,” he said, and went on to describe the ability for colonizing humans to make many items they need on new planets such as Mars, rather than having to bring them along on the journey. The strategy not only saves shipping costs, it allows for print-on-demand of just the parts needed, when they are needed. Of course, 3D Printing is heavily used in the aerospace industry as its unique ability to create complex geometries is demonstrating high weight, and consequently fuel savings for aircraft.
We’re pleased that our home state’s Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) is among Congressional supporters of NASA. Hopefully, NASA Tech Day on the Hill demonstrated to our nation’s lawmakers the power of NASA not only in outer space, but also right here on Earth.
