Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Metallic Glass Gears Up for ‘Cobots,’ Coatings, and More

Where are the robot assistants we were promised?

For all the space that robots have occupied in the popular imagination for the last hundred years – and...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Some Engineering Is Only Skin Deep

Ability to finish surfaces of 3D-printed superalloys improves performance for engines, industry

Recent advances in 3D printing with metals are making it an increasingly...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
NASA’s Robotic Glove Finds Commercial Handhold

It’s no coincidence that our most complex, versatile, and useful body part, the human hand, is also among the most prone to injury. With its fine motor and sensory coordination,...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
High-Performance Lasers Make Waves in Self-Driving Cars, Quantum Devices

Navigating the solar system’s vast distances has, paradoxically, required NASA to master the physics of the universe’s tiniest particles.

“If...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Computers Tough Enough for Space

A tough computer might sound like one that can be dropped from a high table, but in space, computers need to be tough both inside and out. The Center for Space, High-Performance, and Resilient...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Computer Technology
NASA-Born Software Keeps Cloud Traffic Moving

From your streaming TV queue to the cloud storage where you keep photos, servers now play an important role in our lives. As the world continues to need more from these specialized...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Expertise Flows from Computer Cognition

Keeping the lights on in West Africa can be difficult, as the electricity market in the region is plagued with power shortages. While disparities exist, access has improved in the last decade...

Feature Image

NASA battery safety exams influence commercial product testing

Battery safety is incredibly important in space due to the risk of thermal runaway, a reaction where...

Feature Image

Autonomous robots building the shelters and other structures astronauts need before they even land is an exciting idea, but is it practical? Testing such a venture on Earth won’t prove...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
Keeping Warmer in the Great Outdoors

Not everyone would celebrate the new year camping out in the Rocky Mountains during some of the longest, coldest nights of the winter. But that’s how Jon Rosenberg and his wife rang in 2018,...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
Space-Age Water Purification Anywhere on Earth

Piush Soni didn’t think much about clean drinking water until it became hard to find.

As a gemologist spending long periods in African jungles, he realized he wasn’t the...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
‘Positive Energy’ Captures Contaminants

The carbon-based compound in Aquaspace water filters started out more than 35 years ago in Mike Pedersen’s basement, with a stack of NASA research. Now the filters have appeared in the White...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
From Spacesuits to Racing Suits

Technology developed for space has turned up in cars for years. From space shuttle tire engineering ending up in road tires to zero-gravity body posture studies helping make comfy car seats, decades of...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
Space Pens, Pencils, and How NASA Takes Notes in Space

The Space Pen has captured the American imagination in more ways than one. It’s appeared repeatedly in pop culture and even worked as a plot device in a "Seinfeld" episode...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
Measuring Moon Dust to Fight Air Pollution

Moon dust isn’t like the stuff that collects on a bookshelf or on tables – it’s ubiquitous and abrasive, and it clings to everything. It’s so bad that it even broke the vacuum NASA...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
NASA Enlists Trees, Bacteria to Clean Up Earth

NASA explores outer space, but it’s also owner and steward of hundreds of square miles of planet Earth. Populated with scientists and engineers, the space agency’s field centers have...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
NASA Technology Helps in Fight Against Climate Change

NASA technology fights climate change in all kinds of ways. Many of these innovations were pioneered for space travel and planetary exploration before anyone repurposed them for...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
Getting Water out of Snow with NASA Technology

How much water is in mountain snowpack? That’s a question science has been attempting to solve for decades. Finally, NASA-developed technology provides an accurate answer, using a...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Health and Medicine
From a Lightbox to Lamps

Dale Dell’Ario had a glowing box in his living room, and he wanted to share it.

Dell’Ario had retired in 2013 from a long career in medical device manufacturing, where he’d developed lighting...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Ultrasonic Welding Makes Parts for NASA Missions, Commercial Industry

Combine metals and embed sensors with this novel additive manufacturing technique

A burst water main is always expensive and messy, but a pipe...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Plasma Improves 3D Electronics Printing

A new approach to printing electronic components simplifies on-site manufacturing of electronics in space and on Earth.

With help from NASA funding and licensed technologies, San...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Neurological Devices, Racecars, Antennas Benefit from NASA Heat Shield Material

A smartphone can have up to 13 internal antennas to send and receive signals for everything from the basic cellular connection to Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS,...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
NASA Investment in Small Businesses Helps Both Thrive

It’s as true in tech as it is in ancient fables: the little guys can get things done. A dehydrated gel to keep your drinks cool, a cooling system for supercomputers and a...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
Eagle Eyes in Treacherous Skies

Tornados can flip a car when the wind speed reaches 122 mph, making them unpredictability dangerous. Volcanic eruptions are as toxic as they are destructive. Researchers are working hard to improve...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Public Safety
Answering the Call of Distress

As companies and other entities continue making use of NASA know-how, spinoffs from the space agency are bound to bump into each other now and then. That’s what happened as the lifesaving Search and...

Feature Image

Some of the best entertainment at the airport is all the action outside the window. Loaded luggage carriers zip past on their way to planes. Fuel trucks come and go....

Feature Image
Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
Hot Water on Demand

The worst part of any shower, outside of getting soap in your eyes, is probably getting unexpectedly blasted with cold water. Traditional home water heaters mean you have to wait for the right temperature to come...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Now Anyone Can Make Electronics on Demand—Thanks to NASA Research

Chance Glenn traces the inspiration for his 3D electronics printer back to Star Trek, which he began watching in reruns in the late 1970s as a middle schooler.

...
Feature Image
Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
NASA Helps Optimize Air Purifiers with Modeling Expertise

Whether trapping microscopic germs or an abundance of pet hair, air filters help homes and offices alike maintain a clean environment. With any technology, research and...

Feature Image
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Debugging Code Is Rocket Science

Incorrect computer code can blow up rockets, as NASA learned from the first launch in the Ariane 5 rocket series. The 501 rocket used computer code written for the Ariane 4 series – but the change...

Feature Image