Tech spin-offs: wars giving boost to cutting edge technologies.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. -- More than 100 small business leaders crowded into a dining hall here recently to hear military researchers pitch their cutting edge technologies as potential money makers in civilian markets.

One by one, the scientists stood up to give five-minute presentations on everything from portable fuel cells to such complicated concepts as "ultra-sensitive trace detection based on indirect infrared absorption spectroscopy," which is used to monitor chemical vapors.

Many of the presentations focused on new armor, explosive, chemical and biological material detection, all acute needs in homeland defense and the current conflicts in Southwest Asia.

The ultimate hope is that organizations such as the Army Research Laboratory can issue licenses to private partners, who take the financial risk to spin off the technology to civilian markets. The research labs will then receive royalties, and their research can continue.

Technology transfer from military to civilian use is nothing new and vital to the U.S. economy, experts say.

The U.S. military has problems to solve. And for hundreds of years, it has looked to technology to solve these problems. Wars, both conventional and unconventional, have driven the development of some technologies to where they have become ubiquitous in everyday life.

While wars cause incalculable suffering and loss of human life, an unintended consequence has always been transformational technologies that ultimately spin off to civilian use, according to Michael d'Arcy, lecturer at the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King's College London.

"There always are in conflicts, and this one will be no different, that's for sure," he added.

The need for faster and better aircraft drove jet-engine development in the second half of the 20th Century. The Internet, which transformed seemingly overnight how ordinary citizens communicate, had its origins in the Defense Department. The Cold War, an unconventional conflict, pushed the development of space technology from science fiction to science fact within a few short decades. The result is the global positioning system, satellite communications and the ability to monitor the environment and the weather from space.

Even canned food, found in almost every kitchen cabinet, was the result of a military need to get unspoiled meals to troops during the Civil War.

So what will be next? What technologies needed to win the shooting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...