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SATOP in the News
May 14, 2007
By Christina Rexrode
St. Petersburg Times
The Miami Herald
NASA lends small businesses a hand; Is your small business facing a problem only a rocket scientist can solve? Lucky for you, NASA's SATOP program can help.
(c) Copyright 2007, The Miami Herald. All Rights Reserved.
Regional Chamber of Commerce
Ed Kozlowski Jr. didn't want to shutter his beloved glass studio just because his electric bills were soaring. But Kozlowski, who runs Budda Belly Glass Studio, was shelling out almost $2,000 a month to power his glass-blowing furnace, which is attached to the back of his Pinellas Park house. He knew he needed a stronger type of insulation for the furnace, but couldn't find anything that did the job.
He needed a rocket scientist. And fortunately, the premier depository of rocket scientists -- the U.S. space program -- was willing to help.
The Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program, or SATOP for short, connects small businesses that face technological problems with experts who try to solve them. After a company submits a request for help, SATOP matches it with a scientist or engineer from a NASA center or a connected university or company, such as the University of Central Florida or Lockheed Martin.
SATOP, with offices in Florida, Texas, New Mexico and New York, is funded by NASA headquarters in Washington. But the brainpower comes free of charge: Scientists will volunteer up to 40 hours to figure out a company's problem.
"There's no catch," said Chris Gilfriche, who runs SATOP's Florida division in Melbourne. "We're just here to help."
SATOP helped Kozlowski, for instance, by recommending an insulation called FiberFrax, which isn't sold in the home-improvement stores he had been scouring.
He estimates that he's saving $300 to $400 a month on his electric bill as a result. "If it's good enough for the shuttle, it's good enough for my furnace," Kozlowski said.
For all its altruism, the 12-year-old SATOP also serves as a PR campaign, demonstrating that NASA has worthy effects outside the confines of space exploration -- besides the old Velcro and Gore-Tex examples.
"The thought process is that you as a taxpayer have contributed a lot of money to get NASA started, and now it's an opportunity for NASA to give back," said Mike Monahan, a vice president at the Upper Tampa Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce. He's recommended SATOP to about a dozen companies.
Added Gilfriche: "We're trying to make people understand that the space program is more than launching a shuttle once in a while."
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