Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

New Lubricants Protect Machines and the Environment

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

The Mobile Launcher Platform at NASA's Kennedy Space Center is a two-story steel structure that provides a transportable launch base...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Additive Transforms Paint into Insulation

The heat generated by wind resistance and engine exhaust during the launch of a space shuttle is potentially damaging to the casings on the solid rocket boosters, which provide over two-thirds of...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Food Supplement Reduces Fat, Improves Flavor

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

During the Mercury missions, astronauts ate terrible food: freeze- dried powders and semi-liquids in aluminum tubes. Decades later, though,...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Detailed Globes Enhance Education and Recreation

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Earth from space—swirling wisps of white against a backdrop of deep azure, punctuated with brown and green swatches of land, all etched...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Corrosive Gas Restores Artwork, Promises Myriad Applications

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Short wavelength solar radiation in the space environment just outside of the Earth's atmosphere produces atomic oxygen. This...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Students Soaring High With Software Spinoff

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

An educational software product designed by the Educational Technology Team at Ames Research Center is bringing actual aeronautical work...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA Technology Takes Center Stage

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In today's fast-paced business world, there is often more information available to researchers than there is time to search through it. Data mining has...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Amorphous Alloy Surpasses Steel and Titanium

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In the same way that the inventions of steel in the 1800s and plastic in the 1900s sparked revolutions for industry, a new class of amorphous...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Heating And Cooling Efficiency For Homes

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Over 40 years ago, NASA developed Radiant Barrier technology to protect astronauts in the Apollo Program from temperatures that ranged from 250...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Artificial Muscle Kits For The Classroom

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Commonly referred to as "artificial muscles," electroactive polymer (EAP) materials are lightweight strips of highly flexible plastic that bend or...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

A Natural Way To Stay Sweet

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

A revolutionary, low-calorie sugar is now available to the food and beverage market, offering an all-natural alternative to table sugar and artificial...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Damping Goes The Distance In Golf

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In the late 1980s, Dr. Benjamin Dolgin of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed a concept for a high-damping graphite/viscoelastic material for the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Hot And Cold Therapy Eases Pain

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In the 1960s, NASA civil servant Tom Hughes worked for Marshall Space Flight Center's Quality Control Laboratory as a systems engineer. Reporting directly...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Covered In Comfort

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In 1988, NASA began working with private industry to develop thermally adaptive phase-change materials that could be applied to astronauts suits and gloves for better...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Inertial Motion-Tracking Technology for Virtual 3-D

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In the 1990s, NASA pioneered virtual reality research. The concept was present long before, but, prior to this, the technology did not...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Crystal-Clear Communication a Sweet-Sounding Success

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

On July 20, 1969, millions were glued to their television sets when...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA, the Fisherman's Friend

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Every angler has his secrets, whether it be an old family recipe for stink bait, a midnight worm-hunting ritual, or the most coveted of all, the no-fail...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Experiments With Small Animals Rarely Go This Well

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

In the mid-1950s, a young U.S. Air Force engineer named Clark Beck began work with what is now one of NASA's most prolific spinoffs, the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Forty-Year-Old Foam Springs Back With New Benefits

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

The most recognized and widely used NASA spinoff is at it again. Temper foam, whose origins date back to 1966 when it was developed to...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Bringing Thunder and Lightning Indoors

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Piezoelectric materials convert mechanical energy into electrical energy and electrical energy into mechanical energy. They generate electrical...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA's Growing Commitment: The Space Garden

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Astronauts cannot live on dehydrated ice cream alone. Like everyone else, they need their vegetables. Enter VEGGIE, the Deployable Vegetable...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Nanoscale Materials Make for Large-Scale Applications

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Since its dawning days, NASA has been at the forefront of developing and improving materials for aerospace applications. In...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Cooking Dinner at Home From the Office

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

It is well past quitting time, but you are still stuck in the office. Your spouse left work over an hour ago, but is caught in bumper-to-bumper...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Space Suit Spins

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

Space is a hostile environment where astronauts combat extreme temperatures, dangerous radiation, and a near-breathless vacuum. Life support in these unforgiving...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Reflecting on Space Benefits: A Shining Example

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

NASA has long been known for having developed the thin, shiny reflective material used to insulate everything from the Hubble Space...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Raised Relief Mars Globe Brings the Red Planet Closer

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

When the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) entered the Red Planet's atmosphere in March 2006, it joined the ranks of other noble...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Look Sharp While Seeing Sharp

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

While fashion styles are known to come and go, a certain 'shade' from the past has proved otherwise.

Developed in the 1980s, the original SunTiger,...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Microspheres in Plasma Display Panels

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

NASA does things that have never been done "before" sending spacecraft to other planets, sending people to the Moon, and exploring the limits of the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Preventing Ice Before it Forms

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

NASA has always been on the cutting edge of aviation safety research, though many of the technologies the Agency develops also find practical application in...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Affordable Space Tourism: SpaceStationSim

Originating Technology/NASA Contribution

For over 5 years, people have been living and working in space on the International Space Station (ISS), a state-of-the-art laboratory complex...