Mar 12 1999
From The Space Library
NASA selected winners of its Government Inventor of the Year and Commercial Invention of the Year awards. Charles E. Clagett, Associate Head of the Component and Hardware Systems Branch at GSFC, won the Government Inventor of the Year Award for his Apparatus for Providing Torque and for Storing Momentum Energy. Clagett had developed the apparatus, known more commonly as the SMEX Reaction/Momentum Wheel, for NASA's Small Explorer program. NASA had used the apparatus successfully in the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer and the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite. Paul M. Hergenrother, Joseph G. Smith Jr., and Brian J. Jensen of Langley Research Center won the Commercial Inventor of the Year Award for their Phenylethynyl Terminated Imide Oligomers, fifth composition, known as PETI-5, which is a type of glue that holds fibers together. The Langley team had developed PETI-5 as an adhesive for use in various aerospace and commercial applications. Used in high-speed, high-temperature aircraft, PETI-5 had netted US$ 10 million in sales since becoming commercially available.
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