Commentary: Full research capabilities for businesses are right up

Every airplane has a crack in its structure somewhere.

Nice thought, huh? This is just one of the eye-opening things I discovered during a tour of the Air Force Academy's research facilities. This little tidbit of information that I would rather not have heard was discussed at the Center for Aircraft Structural Life Extension, but being military, it has an acronym: CAStLE.

Basically, right under our very noses is a research facility that can match up with graduate research programs of any Ivy League school.

The tour was lead by John Van Winkle, deputy chief of media, and research publicist Julie Imada, with a greeting from the new head of research, Col. Rob Fredell.

In addition to CAStLE, I visited the departments of astronautics and aeronautics, the Chemistry Research Center, and the Laser and Optics Research Center. There are two wind tunnels at the aeronautics lab. There also were many labs I didn't get to, such as cybergenetics ... way over my head but it sounds pretty cool.

The AFA receives $50 million a year in research funding. They are already all over the "green" movement, making bio-diesel from the grease from the cafeteria. A sleep lab is in the planning stages through the Human Environmental Research Center.

And here is the good part: There will be community outreach.

Maybe your company is thinking about researching and developing a new laser, but might not have a subzero, neutralizing reflector quark optimizer. Well, I bet the academy has one you could use.

Maybe your company needs to put something in a wind tunnel; yep, that new star-plane foil security system can be tested in one of the academy's wind tunnels. There are so many applications just a few miles up the road that the possibilities for our economic development are pretty much endless.

How about business recruitment? Avionics companies, biotech companies that need a state-of-the-art chemistry lab or a high- performance computing research center. The possibilities are endless. Our good people at the Economic Development Corp. will have not just another tool in the tool belt for recruitment, but a whole garage full of tools.

From the Institute for National Security Studies to the Space Physics and Atmospheric Research Center, what businesses would benefit by being close to the AFA?

I am talking about some serious brainiacs that the business community can really benefit from. In full disclosure, I had no clue what some of this serious research meant. To protect the innocent, the names of the actual research equipment are made up in this column.

Duncan Stewart, the CEO of the Colorado Springs Technology Incubator can help you connect the dots with the Air Force Academy. So if you need access to a (super-duper) hydrogenator with full ionization capabilities, call Duncan at 685-7877, ext. 114.

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