Moving to Diversify and Commercialize NASTRAN

All of the improvements described above took time to implement. However, many of the using organizations had their own priorities. Several organizations therefore developed their own versions of NASTRAN for internal use, including IBM, Rockwell, and the David Taylor Naval Ship Research & Development Center, not to mention the different NASA Centers. These organizations sometimes contracted with soft­ware development companies to make enhancements to their internal versions. Thus, there developed several centers of expertise forging the way forward on somewhat separate paths, but sharing experiences with each other at the Users’ Colloquia and other venues. The NSMO did not take responsibility for maintenance of these disparate versions but did consider capabilities developed elsewhere for inclusion in the stan­dard NASTRAN, with appropriate review. This was possible because of the modular structure of NASTRAN to accept new solutions or new elements with little or no disruption to anything else, and it allowed the NSMO’s standard NASTRAN to keep up, somewhat, with developments being made by various users.

The first commercial version was announced by MacNeal Schwendler Corporation in 1971.[832] Others followed. SPERRY/NASTRAN was marketed by Sperry Support Services in Europe and by Nippon Univac Kaisha, Ltd., (NUK) in Japan from 1974 to at least 1986. (Sperry was also the UNIVAC parent company—producer of one of the three computers that could run NASTRAN when it was first created.) SPERRY/NASTRAN was developed from COSMIC NASTRAN Level 15.5.[833]

At the 10th NASTRAN Users’ Colloquium in 1982, the following com­mercial versions were identified:[834]

• UAI/NASTRAN (Universal Analytics).

• UNIVAC NASTRAN (Sperry).

• DTNSRDC NASTRAN (David Taylor Naval Ship Research & Development Center).

• MARC NASTRAN (Marc Analysis & Research).

• NKF NASTRAN (NKF Engineering Associates).

In spite of this proliferation, common input and output formats were generally maintained. In 1982, Thomas Butler compared COSMIC NASTRAN with the "competition,” which included at that time, in addi­tion to the commercial NASTRAN versions, the following programs: ASKA, STRUDL, DET VERITAS NORSKE, STARDYNE, MARC, SPAR, ANSYS, SAP, ATLAS, EASE, and SUPERB. He noted that: "during the period in which NASTRAN maintenance decisions emphasized the intensive debug­ging of existing capability in preference to adding new capabilities and con­veniences, the competitive programs strove hard to excel in something that NASTRAN didn’t. They succeeded. They added some elastic elements, e. g.:

• Bending plate with offsets, tapered thickness, and a 10:1 aspect ratio.

• Pipe elbow element.

• Tapered beam element.

• Membrane without excessive stiffness.

• High-order hexagon.

"These new elements make it a bit easier to do some analyses in the category of mechanical structures, listed above.”

In addition to new elements, some of the commercial codes added such capabilities as dynamic reduction to assist in condensing a large – order model to a smaller-order one prior to conducting eigenvalue anal­ysis, nonlinear analysis, and packaged tutorials on FEM analysis.

Viewed from the standpoint of the tools that an analyst needs. . . NASTRAN Level 17.7 can accommodate him with 95 per­cent of those tools. . . . The effect of delaying the addition of new capability during this ‘scrubbing up’ period is to temporar­ily lose the ability to serve the analyst in about 5 percent of his work with the tools that he needs. In the meantime NASTRAN has achieved a good state of health due to the caring efforts of P. R. Pamidi [of CSC] and Bob Brugh [of COSMIC].[835]

The commitment to maintaining the integrity of NASTRAN, rather than adding capability at an unsustainable pace, paid off in the long run.

Computerized Structural Analysis and Research (CSAR) intro­duced a version of NASTRAN in 1988.[836] However, the trend from the 1980s through the 1990s was toward consolidation of commercial sources for NASTRAN. In 1999, MSC acquired Universal Analytics and CSAR. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged that by these acqui­sitions, MSC had "eliminated its only advanced NASTRAN competitors.” In 2002, MSC agreed to divest at least one copy of its software, with source code, to restore competition.[837]

At the time of this writing, there are several versions of NASTRAN com­mercially available. Commercial versions have almost completely superseded NASA’s own version, although it is still available through the Open Channel Foundation (as discussed elsewhere in this paper). Even NASA now uses commercial versions of NASTRAN, in addition to other commercial and in-house structural analysis programs, when they meet a particular need.[838]

If one had to sum up the reasons for NASTRAN’s extraordinary his­tory, it might be: ripe opportunity, followed by excellent execution. Finite elements were on the cusp. The concepts, and the technology to carry them out, were just emerging. The 1960s were the decade in which the course of the technology would be determined—splintered, or integrated— not that every single activity could possibly be brought under one roof. But, if a single centerpiece of finite element analysis was going to emerge, to serve as a standard and reference point for everything else, it had to happen in that decade, before the technical community took off running in a myriad of different directions.

In execution, the project was characterized by focus, passion, estab­lishment of rules, and adherence to those rules, all coming together under an organization that was dedicated to getting its product out rather than hoarding it. Even with these ingredients, successfully producing a gen­eral-purpose computer program, able to adapt through more than 40 years of changing hardware and software technology, was remarkable. Staying true to the guiding principles (general-purpose, modular, open – ended, etc.), even as difficult decisions had to be made and there was not time to develop every intended capability, was a crucial quality of the development team. In contrast, a team that gets sloppy under time pres­sure would not have produced a program such lasting value. NASTRAN may be one of the closest approaches ever achieved to 100-percent suc­cessful technology transition. Not every structural analyst uses NASTRAN, but certainly every modern structural analyst knows about it. Those who think they need it have access to copious information about it and mul­tiple sources from which they can get it in various forms.

This state of affairs exists in part because of the remarkable nature of the product, and in part because of the priority that NASA places on the transition of its technology to other sectors. In preparation to address the other half of this paper—those many accomplishments that, though lesser than NASTRAN, also push the frontier forward in incremental steps—we now move to a discussion of those activities in which NASA engages for the specific purpose of accomplishing technology transition.

Dissemination and Distribution: NASA Establishes COSMIC

Transitioning technology to U. S. industry, universities, and other Government agencies is part of NASA’s charter under the 1958 Space Act. Some such transfer happens "naturally” through conferences, journal publi­cations, collaborative research, and other interactions among the technical community. However, NASA also has established specific, structured tech­nology transfer activities. The NASA Technology Utilization (TU) program was established in 1963. The names of the program’s components and activ­ities have changed over time but have generally included the following:[839]

• Publications.

• Tech briefs: notification of promising technologies.

• Technology Utilization compilations.

• Small-business announcements.

• Technical Support Packages: more detailed

information about a specific technology, provided on request.

• Industrial Applications Centers: university-based services to assist potential technology users in searching NASA scientific and technical information.

• Technology Utilization Officers (TUOs) at the NASA Centers to assist interested parties in identifying and understanding opportunities for technology transfer.

• An Applications Engineering process for developing and commercializing specific technologies, once interest has been established.

• The Computer Software Management and Information Center—a university-based center making NASA soft­ware and documentation available to industrial clients.

To expedite and enhance its technology transfer mandate, NASA established a Computer Software Management and Information Center at the University of Georgia at Athens. Within the first few years of the Technology Utilization program, it became apparent that many of the "technology products” being generated by NASA were computer pro­grams. NASA therefore started COSMIC in 1966 to provide the services necessary to manage and distribute computer programs. These services included screening programs and documentation for quality and usabil­ity; announcing available programs to potential users; and storing, copy­ing, and distributing the programs and documentation. In addition, as the collection grew, it was necessary to ensure that each new program added capability and was not duplicative with programs already being offered.[840]

After the first year of operation, COSMIC published a catalog of 113 programs that were fully operational and documented. Another 11 pro­grams with incomplete documentation and 7 programs missing subrou­tines were also offered for customers who would find the data useful even in an incomplete state. Monthly supplements to the catalog added approx­imately 20 programs per month.[841] By 1971, COSMIC had distributed over 2,500 software packages and had approximately 900 computer programs available. New additions were published in a quarterly Computer Programs Abstracts Journal. The collection expanded to include software developed by other Government agencies besides NASA. The Department of Defense (DOD) joined the effort in 1968, adding DOD-funded computer programs that were suitable for public release to the collection.[842] In 1981, there were 1,600 programs available.[843] Programs were also withdrawn, because of obsolescence or other reasons. During the early 1990s, the collection con­sisted of slightly more than 1,000 programs.[844] NASTRAN, when released publicly in 1970, was distributed through COSMIC, as were most of the other computer programs mentioned throughout this paper.

Customers included U. S. industry, universities, and other Government agencies. Customers received source code and documentation, and unlim­ited rights to copy the programs for their own use. Initially, the cost to the user was just the cost of the media on which the software and documen­tation were delivered. Basic program cost in 1967 was $75, furnished on cards (2,000 or less) or tape. Card decks exceeding 2,000 cards were priced on a case-by-case basis. Documentation could also be purchased separately, to help the user determine if the software itself was applicable to his or her needs. Documentation prices ranged from $1.50 for 25 pages or less, to $15 for 300 pages or more.[845] Purchase terms eventually changed to a lease/license format, and prices were increased somewhat to help defray the costs of developing and maintaining the programs. Nevertheless, the pricing was still much less than that of commercial software. A cost-ben­efit study, conducted in 1977 and covering the period from 1971-1976, noted that the operation of COSMIC during that period had only cost $1.7 million, against an estimated $43.5 million in benefit provided to users. During that period, there were 21,000 requests for computer pro­gram documentation, leading to 1,200 computer programs delivered.[846]

COSMIC operations continued through the 1990s. In 2001, custody of the COSMIC collection was transferred to a new organization, Open

Channel Software (OCS). OCS and a related nonprofit organization, the Open Channel Foundation, were started in 1999 at the University of Chicago. Originally established to provide dissemination of university – developed software, this effort, like COSMIC, soon grew to include software from a broader range of academic and research institutions. The agreement to transfer the COSMIC collection to OCS was made through the Robert C. Byrd National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC), which itself was estab­lished in 1989 and had been working with NASA and other Government agencies to facilitate beneficial technology transfer and partnerships.[847]

Although COSMIC is no longer active, NASA continues to make new technical software available to universities, other research centers, and U. S. companies that can benefit from its use. User agreements are made directly with the Centers where the software is developed. User inter­faces and documentation are typically not as polished as commercial software, but the level of technology is often ahead of anything com­mercially available, and excellent support is usually available from the research group that has developed the software. The monetary cost is minimal or, in many cases, zero.[848] Joint development agreements may be made if a potential user desires enhancements and is willing to partici­pate in their development. Whether through COSMIC or by other means, most of the computer programs discussed in the following sections have been made available to U. S. industry and other interested users.