Charles Redmond
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                                 
December 20, 1993
(Phone:  202/358-1757)

RELEASE:  93- 225

NASA MODIFIES FUNDING SUPPORT FOR CENTERS FOR COMMERCIAL 
DEVELOPMENT
Acting on the recommendations of an independent peer review 
committee, NASA today announced it will phase out its support 
for six of the Centers for the Commercial Development of Space 
(CCDS).
The centers whose funding is being phased out are (with their 
research speciality):
o  Center for Advanced Materials, Battelle Laboratories, 
Columbus, Ohio
o  Center for Commercial Crystal Growth in Space, Clarkson 
University, Potsdam, New York
o  Center for Materials for Space Structures, Case Western 
Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
o  Center for Cell Research, Pennsylvania State University, 
University Park, Pennsylvania 
o  Center for Space Transportation and Applied Research, 
University of Tennessee, Tullahoma, Tennessee
o  Space Automation and Robotics Center, Environmental Research 
Institute of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
NASA will begin working immediately with the centers to ensure 
an orderly phase out over the next several months.  The 
phase-out activities will begin immediately.  In addition, NASA 
will work with the remaining 11 centers to implement specific 
recommendations of the peer review team.

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The agency's decision to conduct a peer review at this time is 
consistent with the overall charter of the CCDS program and 
Congressional guidance.  Gregory M. Reck, NASA's Acting 
Associate Administrator for the Office of Advanced Concepts and 
Technology, the program office responsible for the CCDS program, 
said this review and the recommendations NASA is implementing 
are designed to strengthen the agency's commercial development 
activities.  Mr. Reck said these actions will further focus the 
efforts of the CCDS community on relevant commercial 
technologies and stronger industrial partnerships.
The peer review team was chaired by Dr. Robert Costello, a 
noted technology transfer expert and the founder of the 
Austin-based Sematech consortia.
The review team studied case histories and paid site visits to 
15 of the 17 CCDS organizations (excluding the recently-created 
Florida Atlantic University and University of Maryland CCDS 
organizations associated with communications).  At NASA's 
direction, the team rated each of the CCDS organizations on 
their subscription to a "commercial" criterion.  The review 
team's judgment and recommendations were driven by whether a 
CCDS was pursuing projects which had clearly-defined commercial 
goals or which were supported by relatively robust levels of 
industry-matched funds.
The review team provided NASA with a set of general guidelines 
regarding the CCDS program and its efficacy as a vehicle for 
commercialization of space.  The review team said the CCDS 
program "is a valid approach to and may serve as a conceptual 
scheme for the commercialization of space," but that the program 
was not intended to be a "detailed prescription of the way the 
total commercialization of space should proceed."
The review team also said the program should "be managed 
flexibly enough to allow for retreats, accommodations, 
regroupings and terminations," and should be characterized by 
flexibility.  The team also noted that the space research and 
technology development efforts of the CCDS program should focus 
on depth rather than breadth and should address solutions "of 
the most relevant problems identified by industrial partners."
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The CCDS program was established by NASA in 1985 in response to 
White House directives to increase private sector investment and 
interest in commercial space-related activities, while 
encouraging U.S. economic leadership and stimulating advances in 
promising areas of research and development. The CCDS's are 
based at universities and research institutions across the 
country and are allied with appropriate NASA field centers and 
affiliated industrial partners.

Since the program began, NASA has issued four solicitations in 
various areas of promising space-related commercial research and 
development.  From those solicitations, 17 centers had been 
established in eight industry-related, space-based, 
high-technology research areas: materials processing, 
biotechnology, remote sensing, communications, automation and 
robotics, space propulsion, space structures and space power.  
Technological breakthroughs have led to new products in 
medicine, power components, electronics and other areas.  As a 
direct result of the CCDS program, 17 new companies now exist in 
eight states across the country.

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