Upon completing the fellowship he secured a staff position at the National Bureau of Standards, eventually working his way up to his appointment as director in May, 1952.

In its annual report for 1918, the bureau announced: "The need of the development of specifications and methods of test for electric batteries has long been recognized; but facilities have not been available to undertake this work.

By 1948, sales of Protecto-Charge had started to increase, but when Ritchie was made aware of LC 302, he became concerned enough that he leveraged his connections with the Oakland Better Business Bureau to put pressure on the NBS to test his product.

[7] Despite its stated position that battery additives were worthless and partly in response to the mounting political pressure, the NBS eventually went ahead and quietly tested AD-X2 in early 1949, with the expected result that it had no beneficial effect.

In 1953, a year after Astin was appointed director of the NBS, the US Post Office, in conjunction with the Federal Trade Commission, issued a postal fraud order banning the use of mailings to promote Ritchie's product.

The Allen V. Astin Measurement Science Award, first issued in 1984, is presented by the United States Department of Commerce for achievement in metrology.