Research and Development: The Launch Pad of Innovation Research
and development is a thought-provoking area of the aerospace
industry, where a modest project can lead to unexpected
discoveries that go far beyond the science of flight to improve
our daily lives. R&D ranges from basic R&D that embraces
investigations with no immediate practical objective to research
that is oriented to creating products or improving product
performance. NASA-funded R&D has produced materials that are not
only used in space suits to protect astronauts from the harsh
space environment but are now used to protect firefighters.
Barcode technology developed by NASA to track millions of
spacecraft parts is universally used in modern commerce. From
great medical discoveries and powerful defensive systems to the
invention of the Internet, governments have historically
provided the resources and environment needed for scientific
researchers to excel. R&D conducted by the industry itself
advances the competitive positions of the U.S. aer