Book Description

The U.S. government technical report is a primary means by which the results of federally funded research and development (R & D) are transferred to the U.S. aerospace industry. However, little is known about this information product in terms of its actual use, importance, and value in the transfer of federally funded R & D. Little is also known about the intermediary-based system that is used to transfer the results of federally funded R & D to the U.S. aerospace industry. To help establish a body of knowledge, the U.S. government technical report is being investigated as part of the NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Definition Research Project. In this report, we summarize the literature on technical reports, present a model that depicts the transfer of federally funded aerospace R & D via the U.S. government technical report, and present the results of research that investigated aerospace knowledge diffusion vis-a-vis the technical communication practices of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists who were members of either the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society Testing and Materials, or the Society for the Advancement of Materials & Process Engineering.