Bringing the Tunnel to Industry and Academia

NASA has always justified its existence by making itself available for outside research. In an effort to advertise the services and capabilities of Langley’s wind tunnels, NASA published the technical memorandum, "Characteristics of Major Active Wind Tunnels at the Langley Research Center,” by William T. Shaefer, Jr., in July 1965. Unlike the NACA’s goal of assisting industry through the use of its pioneering wind tunnels at a time when there were few facilities to rely upon, NASA’s wind tunnels first and foremost met the needs of the Agency’s fundamental research and development. Secondary to that priority were projects that were important to other Government agencies. Two specific committees han­dled U. S. Army, Navy, and Air Force requests concerning aircraft and missiles and propulsion projects. Finally, the aerospace industry had access to NASA facilities, primarily the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnels, on a fee basis for the evaluation of proprietary designs. No NASA wind tun­nel was to be used for testing that could be done at a commercial facil­ity, and all projects had to be "clearly in the national interest.”[625]

NASA continued to "sell” its tunnels on through the following decades. In 1992, the Agency confidently announced:

NASA’s wind tunnels are a national technological resource. They have provided vast knowledge that has contributed to the development and advancement of the nation’s aviation industry, space program, economy and the national security. Amid today’s increasingly fierce international, commercial and technological competi­tion, NASA’s wind tunnels are crucial tools for helping the United States retain its global leadership in aviation and space flight.[626]

According to this rhetoric, NASA’s wind tunnels were central to the continued leadership of the United States in aerospace.

As part of the selling of the tunnels, NASA initiated the Technology Opportunities Showcase (TOPS) in the early 1990s. The program distrib­uted to the aerospace industry a catalog of available facilities similar to a real estate sampler. A prospective user could check a box marked "Please Send More Information” or "Would Like To Discuss Facility Usage” as part of the process. NASA wind tunnels were used on a space-available basis. If the research was of interest to NASA, there would be no facility charge, and the Agency would publish the results. If a manufacturing concern had a proprietary interest and the client did not want the test results to be public, then it had to bear all costs, primarily the use of the facility.[627]

The TOPS evolved into the NASA Aeronautics Test Program (ATP) in the early 21st century to include all four Research Centers at Langley, Ames, Glenn, and Dryden.[628] The ATP offered Government, corpora­tions, and institutions the opportunity to contract 14 facilities, which included a "nationwide team of highly trained and certified staff, whose backgrounds and education encompass every aspect of aerospace test­ing and engineering,” for a "wide range” of experimental test services that reflected "sixty years of unmatched aerospace test history.” The ATP

and, by extension, NASA maintained that they could provide clients test results of "unparalleled superiority.”[629]