Environmental and Agricultural Resources

NASA Spinoff

Environmental and Agricultural Resources

NASA Technology

In 2004, a team of researchers at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU) was trying to develop a substance that would glow to indicate the presence of...

NASA Technology

When Stennis Space Center officials wanted to try more energy-efficient lighting in the center’s rocket engine test stands, they couldn’t simply go...

NASA Technology

The goal is a fresh and tasty salad on Mars. While other NASA programs are working on getting to the Red Planet, the Agency’s Veggie team is figuring out how to grow...

NASA Technology

Fires were raging in Northern California in June 2008, at the height of one of the state’s most destructive wildfire seasons in history, and one blaze was...

NASA Technology

NASA has been taking pictures of Earth from space for as long as the Space Agency has been around—and well before Boston-based startup TellusLabs began using...

NASA Technology

An apple a day keeps the doctor away—but how do you bring enough apples, and other fresh food, all the way to Mars and back? Given the limits on how...

NASA Technology

For climate scientists, the whole Earth is a laboratory. They need to observe what is happening across the entire planet over long swaths of...

NASA Technology

When an educational agency contacted NASA engineer Geoff Bland in 2010, wondering about a way to monitor ponds and streams where water samples were being...

NASA Technology

When NASA wanted to build the greenest, most energy-efficient Federal building in the United States, it needed a way to keep track of the energy being...

NASA Technology

There are now countless Earth-imaging satellites circling the globe, with more being sent up each year than the previous year. Yet with all those lenses...

NASA Technology

The technology looks unassuming enough: circular metal plates with multiple holes in them. The plates usually sport a large central hole...

NASA Technology

Astronaut ice cream may be an exotic treat for kids, but for real space explorers, it turns out a fresh, crunchy salad could sometimes really...

NASA Technology

Earth may be the “Blue Planet,” with more than 70 percent of its surface covered in water, but it is still a thirsty planet, with freshwater in heavy...

NASA Technology

Since the launch of the first Landsat satellite in 1972, NASA’s observations of Earth from space have famously been used for charting trends in climate,...

NASA Technology

There has been much talk of self-driving cars lately, as various automakers and technology companies such as Google race to put the first fully autonomous...

NASA Technology

Idaho is a nature-lover’s dream. Forests there blanket swaths of terrain, from the glassy lake regions of the northern Panhandle to the famous trout-fishing streams...

NASA Technology

Finding a forest fire can be more difficult than some would expect. Seeing smoke in the distance indicates a problem, but determining the exact...

NASA Technology

In a corner of Ames Research Center in California stand a pair of rather unusual buildings, where mere mortals can control magnetic fields.

NASA Technology

At a glance, the surface of Mars appears to offer little in the way of natural resources. Scenes captured by the various rovers exploring the planet depict a...

NASA Technology

L anny Faleide founded his Agri ImaGIS company, now called Satshot Inc., in 1994 on an idea that may have given offense to the day’s tillers...

NASA Technology

It’s expensive to fly to low-Earth orbit, let alone Mars and beyond. Engines are still propelled primarily by burning liquid fuel, but future...

NASA Technology

Big opportunities sometimes come in the smallest packages.

NASA Technology

Because of their expense, building and operating satellites has long been the purview of large companies and Government agencies. Having to manufacture...

NASA Technology

To understand climate change, we need to understand the movement of carbon, one of the planet’s most abundant resources and a building block of life that is...

NASA Technology

California is an agricultural powerhouse. In 2012, its 81,500 farms and ranches produced $42.6 billion in cash receipts, the most by any state. But that abundance is...

NASA Technology

Curiosity is the undisputed hot rod of planetary rovers. Nine-and-a-half feet long, nearly 2,000 pounds, and powered by a thermo-nuclear power generator under its...

NASA Technology

To understand the connection between the development of Martian power systems and technology that can pull oil from old wells or capture gases released during...

NASA Technology

Farming has never been more productive, but increasing demands from a growing economy and world population mean age-old risks such as insects and plant disease remain...

NASA Technology

When NASA launched the Earth Resources Technology Satellite, later known as Landsat, in July 1972, the first spacecraft dedicated to monitoring Earth’s surface carried two...

NASA Technology

“It all started with ecological life support systems for exploration,” says David Bubenheim, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center....

NASA Spinoff