It provided standards for safety. Deciding it could be useful to use both the restraint systems and the limits of tolerance in the automotive crash protection program has saved more than 15 or 20,000 lives a year of people going through otherwise fatal crashes. Our findings were applied to both aviation and automotive transportation. I even testified at hearings that helped establish the U.S. Department of Transportation. I helped formulate the protective laws, the seat belt laws and so on and so forth.
Applied research is short order cooking, and it is necessary.
You have the satisfaction of knowing it's not esoteric. It's not like classical research, just to find out something nobody can use. Applied research produces results that go into, in this case, saving lives. My parents were missionaries, so this follows a family tradition.