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NASA slow to build commercial prospects

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Monday, February 24, 2003
Posted: 2:04 PM EST (1904 GMT)
By Sharon Theimer

Space perfume, potatoes among successes

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Commercial research aboard NASA's
manned space vehicles has produced better car parts, a new
perfume and disease-free seed potatoes, but the effort to recruit
fresh business and attract more private money has stagnated.

"The thing people don't realize is how much this impacts their daily life," said Bob Britt, president of Quantum Tubers Corp. of Delavan, Wisconsin, which has worked with NASA to develop disease-free seed potatoes in space.

"A potato as a seed is a dirty thing," Britt said. "What we're doing is breaking the cycle (of disease) so we're starting out with zero-pathogen tubers.

"We worked with (NASA) in putting together a system which virtually has revolutionized the way seed potatoes are developed in the world," he said.

Active links with this story:

CNN.com

Space.com

The SanDiego Union-Tribune

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