AAWSAP DIRD, Space Access: Where We’ve Been and Where We Could Go, March 2010

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veterans responded, "It was not a technology issue; it was a
hardware issue."
In a keynote address to the Aeronautical Revolutionary Concepts
Workshop sponsored by the Vehicle Applications Panel of the
National Research Council and held at NASA Ames in July 1984,
then-Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Productivity, Technology,
and Innovation Dr. D. Bruce Merrifield identified the problem of
translating ideas into products as preparing technology for product
manufacture. Dr. Merrifield drew an analogy between this step and
Major League Baseball's farm system, which prepares skilled but
untrained players for the major leagues. The United States assigns
projects to accomplish technology tasks so the flow of production­
ready hardware is always improving and is not fixed (see Figure 1).
Innovation Focus:
Preparation of Technology for Application
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Or.O. Bruce Merrifield
Oeptment of Commerce
1983 Innovation In Aeronautics
Assistant Secretary for Productivity,
Wortcshop, NASA AMES
Technology and Innovation
Figure 1. Hardware Flow
Saturn I and Saturn V could be readied for a moon flight in such a
short time because most of their hardware was based on a frozen
design, proven production processes, and adaptation of existing
hardware. Using a similar approach, current industrial capabilities
can create the next practical system for accessing space. In the late
1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. Air Force was working toward an
operational capability analogous to its B-52 fleets: flight operations
when required or "on demand." After NASA was assigned
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