From Duct Tape to Penicillin, GPS to Superglue: Thank the DOD

Lisa M. Krieger

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Some of the U.S. military’s most defining technologies have nothing to do with missiles, tanks, guns, and other deadly weaponry. While important in war, these innovations—from duct tape and blood banks to GPS— ultimately play a far larger role on the home front, improving everyday lives.

But now scientists are worried the Trump administration’s budget cuts threaten the long and historic funding growth for Department of Defense-supported breakthrough science, risking America’s global dominance in a tech-driven economy and undermining future payoffs.

“Every single day, people engage with DOD-funded research,” said Jeff Decker, a former 2nd Ranger Battalion light infantry squad leader in the U.S. Army, deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan. He now directs Stanford University’s Technology Transfer for Defense Program, which helps transition new technologies from the laboratory to commercial products and defense capabilities.

“The core goal is knowledge,” Decker said. “If we lose that, not only does it hollow out the ability for campuses to do research … it also hollows out the specter of what we’ll have 30 years from now.”