Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Astronaut Experience Inspires Single-Handed Drone Flight Controller

NASA Technology

Astronaut Scott Parazynski has flown airplanes, climbed Mount Everest, and scuba-dived deep in a volcanic lake—but he says floating in space...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Freeze-Dried Foods Nourish Adventurers and the Imagination

NASA Technology

Freeze-dried food, today, is commonplace. It’s in the baby food aisle and next to the dried apricots. Hikers carry it on backwoods treks and doomsday...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Carbon-Fiber Heat Sink Makes Batteries Safer for Electric Cars, Bikes, and More

NASA Technology

Batteries have come a long way in recent years. Lithium-ion batteries in particular are more powerful, longer-lasting, and...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Spacesuit Insulation Protects Personal Devices

NASA Technology

Protecting astronauts from the extreme temperatures of space while they explore the Moon or repair the exterior of the International Space Station requires a suit...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Nanotechnology Repairs Engine Damage in Cars

NASA Technology

That spot of oil on the garage floor dripping from your engine indicates a problem. It’s so small that you put off going to the mechanic, until you hear a new noise...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Zero-Gravity Body Posture Influences Acupressure Massage Chair

NASA Technology

Most people don’t think about how easy it is to sit behind a desk or go through a door—for them, it’s automatic. But sitting horizontally at a...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Bowflex System Spurs Revolution in Home Fitness

NASA Technology

The commercials were once ubiquitous, and the machines soon appeared in spare rooms and garages across the country. The Bowflex Revolution was a phenomenon of the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Spacesuit Air Filters Eliminate Household Pet Odors

NASA Technology

In a surprising turn, NASA-backed research on new spacesuit technology could improve air quality in the homes of pet owners, as well as keep cars smelling fresh...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA Research Sends Video Game Players on a Journey to Mars

NASA Technology

What would it be like to venture to another planet? To kick up red dirt on Mars and crawl through the lava tubes that wind beneath the surface? To build...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Brainwaves Reveal Student Engagement, Operate Household Objects

NASA Technology

When we talk about operating “on autopilot,” we usually mean acting with little thought or effort, often resulting in error. It turns out actual...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Memory Foam Supports and Shapes in Women’s Apparel

NASA Technology

If there’s one NASA spinoff that is almost guaranteed to have touched your life, it is memory foam. Even traditional spring mattresses typically have a layer...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Rocket Design Leads to Turbo-Charged Air Purifier

NASA Technology

The founders of Wynd, a start-up that makes personal air purifiers, didn’t particularly have space exploration on the brain when they built their prototype. But...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA Plant Research Offers a Breath of Fresh Air

NASA Technology

Try to name sources of air pollution. Most likely your first thoughts would be things like exhaust from burning coal or driving a car. But, perhaps...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Light Research Aids Slumber

NASA Technology

In the age of smartphones and e-readers, with touchscreens and LED displays seemingly on every appliance and everywhere else, it has also become quite commonplace to talk about the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Space Blanket-Inspired Cases Protect Expensive Devices

NASA Technology

Nick Blanton spends a lot of time outdoors, skiing in the winter months and hiking when the weather’s warm. All of this takes a toll on his electronic...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Apollo 11 History Archive Helps Virtual Reality Program Come to Life

NASA Technology

Imagine yourself in the cramped cockpit of the Apollo spacecraft heading to the moon. Look around to see Earth out one window and stars lighting...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Light-Induced Oxidation Cleans Air, Surfaces, Clothes

NASA Technology

In late 2015 and early 2016, while Southern California Gas workers struggled for months to stop a natural gas leak from a well at Aliso Canyon in Los Angeles,...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Ferrofluid Technology Becomes a Magnet for Pioneering Artists

NASA Technology

In 2008, when Nikola Ilic came across an online video of moving ferrofluid sculptures by Japanese artist Sachiko Kodama, with black liquid rising into...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

The Martian Garden Recreates Red Planet’s Surface

NASA Technology

After the Phoenix lander settled into the northern polar region of Mars in 2008, its operators discovered that icy soil scraped from the planet’s surface was...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Aerogel Insulation Makes Thinner, Warmer Outerwear

NASA Technology

When Michael Markesbery, future cofounder of Oros, climbed the tallest mountain in the Swiss Alps with friends, he was bundled up with so many bulky layers he...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Space-Grade Insulation Keeps Beer Colder on Earth

NASA Technology

A class of insulation invented to help NASA with a range of daunting tasks, from storing liquid hydrogen or helium to insulating spacecraft and keeping astronauts...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

High-Efficiency LEDs Grow Crops, Stimulate Alertness

NASA Technology

NASA harnesses the power of light for purposes as varied as laser communications, 3D mapping of land surfaces, and spectroscopy to determine the composition of...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Paired Sleep Tracker, Light Therapy Tools Retrain Circadian Rhythms

NASA Technology

Lack of sleep could be costing the U.S. economy around $411 billion a year, according to a 2016 estimate by the RAND Corporation. That same year,...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

CMOS Sensors Enable Phone Cameras, HD Video

NASA Technology

“People told me, ‘You’re an idiot to work on this,’” Eric Fossum recalls of his early experiments with what was at the time an alternate form of digital image...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Novel Threading Enables New Approach to Golf Clubs

NASA Technology

NASA scientists routinely pioneer advances in cutting-edge fields like lasers and computer chips, but sometimes it’s the innovations they make in simple...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Blue-Light-Cancelling Lens Gives Skiers a Clearer View

NASA Technology

Of all the colors the human eye is capable of seeing, it is particularly sensitive to blues and greens, which comprise the middle wavelengths of the visible...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Professional Development Program Gets Bird’s-Eye View of Wineries

NASA Technology

Virginia might not yet rival California when it comes to wine production, but a growing number of wineries and vintners are cropping up across...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Rechargeable Hearing Aid Batteries Draw from NASA Research

NASA Technology

We often imagine that inventions are born whole: Thomas Edison creates the incandescent light bulb and lights up Christie Street in Menlo Park on New...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Carbon Nanotube Resin Shores Up Boats, Bikes

NASA Technology

At 100 times the strength of steel and just one-sixth the weight, it is easy to see why engineers, and not just at NASA, were immediately excited by the potential in...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Large-Scale 3D Printer Brings Manufacturing to the Masses

NASA Technology

When the nearest Home Depot is out of reach and Amazon.com doesn’t deliver, finding spare parts or a new tool can be a challenge. That can be true...