
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 16, 1995                   TAG: 9508160060
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SPACESPEAK

IF YOU see Dan Sable, president of Virginia Power Technologies in Blacksburg, congratulate him. His tiny company - four full-time employees - has just won a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Unless you have an hour to spare, though, maybe you shouldn't ask him what the grant's for. OK, if you must know, it's to work on the first phase of ``An Automated System for the Design of Common- and Differential-model Power Line Filters Satisfying both EMI and System Stability Requirements.''

That's ASDCDMPLFSBEMISR for short.

The project is important because increasingly powerful high-tech gadgets are being used routinely in homes and work places. Not only can the electromagnetic interference from those gadgets mess up directions transmitted to satellites in space, but it also can foul up navigational equipment so necessary for the safety of airplanes and, closer to home, cause static on TV sets and cordless phones.

The point of ASDCDMPLFSBEMISR is to bring such interference under control.

Good old American techno-how ought to be able to solve the problem - and as the movie ``Apollo 13'' reminds us, solutions sometimes come from unlikely sources. In this case, the solution may well come from Sable's small shop in Blacksburg.

At the least, the NASA grant is a boost for the entrepreneurial spirit and proof again that not all significant research and development in this country occurs in California's Silicon Valley or North Carolina's Research Triangle. Some of it's happening right here in the New River and Roanoke valleys, where folks may have to get more accustomed to spacespeak like ASDCDMPLFSBEMISR.

by CNB