Airborne 1 is the offspring of a consulting engagement with the Center for Technological Innovation, a joint venture between the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and IC2, the premier business incubator and technology transfer program in the United States. The goal was simple: by taking lessons learned from NASA’s very successful Tech Transfer program, the sister agency NOAA had a successful model to follow. Our contract called for us to explore the commercialization of LiDAR.