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...

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...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NODE+ Platform Integrates Sensors with Smartphones

NASA Technology

In 2007, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a call for a sensor that could equip a smartphone with the ability to detect dangerous gases and...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Precision Coffeemaker Adapts Brews to Beans, Taste

NASA Technology

Technology often takes circuitous paths. A magnetron developed for precision bombing during World War II led to the microwave oven, and a battery-powered drill...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

CO₂ Recovery System Saves Brewers Money, Puts Bubbles into Beer

NASA Technology

Building on work he and his companies did with Johnson Space Center’s In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) team, Robert Zubrin has developed and...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Heat-Reflecting Material Regulates Body Temperature

NASA Technology

F rom its beginnings, the U.S. X-Plane Program has delivered big on its objective: to advance aviation science and technology through the use of experimental...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Antimicrobial Agent Updates Ancient Industry of Prayer Mats

NASA Technology

Although it is one of the most abundant organic compounds on Earth, chitin is not among the best understood. For example, chitosan, a derivative of...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Modified Monitor Provides Glasses-Free 3D for Pilots, Gamers

NASA Technology

When flying the increasingly crowded skies, pilots need to have an arsenal of information at the ready: altitude, airspeed, fuel level, distance to...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Magnetic Fluids Deliver Better Speaker Sound Quality

NASA Technology

In the early 1960s NASA scientists were trying to work around a major problem for orbiting spacecraft: how to move fuel into an engine without the benefit of...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Air Revitalization System Enables Excursions to the Stratosphere

NASA Technology

In order to test a parachute system for surviving high-altitude bailouts, from 1959 to 1960 the US Air Force commenced Project Excelsior. It...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Bioreactor Yields Extracts for Skin Cream

NASA Technology

Most scientists do not question whether the force of gravity will affect their experiments. On Earth, gravity is a constant. For NASA scientists studying the effects of...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

LEDs Illuminate Bulbs for Better Sleep, Wake Cycles

NASA Technology

Kennedy Space Center has been known as America’s spaceport for more than 50 years. From Project Mercury to recent commercial-space missions, the nation has...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Private Astronaut Training Prepares Commercial Crews of Tomorrow

NASA Technology

In addition to teaching crewmembers to perform crucial tasks like using their spacecraft’s technical devices, piloting a vehicle back into...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Activity Monitors Help Users Get Optimum Sun Exposure

NASA Technology

To the casual observer, the sun appears as a steady, static, glowing ball of heat. But closer inspection reveals our closest star can be rambunctious, capable...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Balance Devices Train Golfers for a Consistent Swing

NASA Technology

After a stint in space, astronauts’ minds and bodies take some time to readjust to life on Earth. While the human body adapts relatively quickly to a lack of...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Charged Particles Kill Pathogens and Round Up Dust

NASA Technology

Before astronauts are able to undertake long-term missions into the solar system, they’ll need technologies that allow them to grow their own fruits and...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Brainwave Monitoring Software Improves Distracted Minds

NASA Technology

Imagine moving an object using only your mind. Software company Unique Logic’s Time on Task exercise makes that feat possible, at least on a computer...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Home Air Purifiers Eradicate Harmful Pathogens

NASA Technology

In the 1990s, NASA scientists were thinking of what astronauts would need to survive long-term missions to the moon and even to other planets in the solar system....

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Thermal Materials Protect Priceless, Personal Keepsakes

NASA Technology

Most of us cannot comprehend the task of building something to withstand temperatures over 4,000 °F—but NASA can. The space shuttles endured such...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Radiant Barriers Save Energy in Buildings

NASA Technology

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s—a satelloon?

That’s what researchers and designers at Langley Research Center nicknamed Echo I, the first NASA...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA-Enhanced Water Bottles Filter Water on the Go

NASA Technology

Thanks to NASA bscience missions, researchers are finding that water may be more plentiful in space than we previously believed. The Lunar Crater Observation and...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Thermal Materials Drive Professional Apparel Line

NASA Technology

From the time he was a Boy Scout, Gihan Amarasiriwardena had a fascination with performance materials. While growing up in the northeastern United States, he...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Space-Inspired Trailers Encourage Exploration on Earth

NASA Technology

An inch can make a world of difference. Which is why Garrett Finney moved the office coffee-maker into the full-size, cardboard mockup of the new trailer...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Elemental Scanning Devices Authenticate Works of Art

NASA Technology

What do you think the paper or computer screen you are looking at is made of? Are the shoes you are wearing really made of leather? Is the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Ultra-Thin Coatings Beautify Art

NASA Technology

The craftsmen in the Roman Empire who constructed the Lycurgus Cup 17 centuries ago probably didn’t think their artifact would survive for nearly 2,000 years as a prized...