Spinoff: Public Safety

Fast-Flow Nanofiber Filters Purify Water at Home and in the Field

NASA Technology

More than a billion people around the world lack easy access to clean water—some trek for miles just to fill jugs for themselves and their...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Orion Video Requirement Advances High-Speed, Compact Cameras

NASA Technology

Parachute deployment is usually a fairly simple—if crucial—operation. A small pilot parachute tossed into the wind might pull free a pin securing...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Miniaturized Vacuum Pumps Play Big Roles on Mars and Earth

NASA Technology

As its name implies, the Curiosity rover lowered into Gale Crater on Mars by sky crane in August 2012 has a lot of questions to answer. The most...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Wire Sensors Alert to Dangerous Conditions in the Clouds

NASA Technology

One common hazard facing airplanes is ice: not just on the ground, but in the air, where it can coat wings or engines. But how do you know when icing...

Spinoff: Public Safety

GPS Sensor Web Helps Forecasters Warn of Monsoon Flash Floods

NASA Technology

In the American Southwest and in northwestern Mexico, more than half the annual rainfall often comes in the form of the torrential and unpredictable...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Analytic Tool Simplifies Metal Fracture Assessments

NASA Technology

When NASA builds a spacecraft, materials engineers at the Agency have the important task of assessing the structural properties of the materials that comprise...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Hydrogen Detection Tape Saves Time and Lives

NASA Technology

From the Apollo missions through the Space Shuttle Program, NASA has relied on liquid hydrogen as a fuel source for the upper stages of its rocket launches. The reason...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Rice Crop Models Stabilize Global Markets, Enable Efficient Irrigation

NASA Technology

When global food prices spiked dramatically in late 2007 and into 2008, with the costs of many basic dietary staples doubling or even...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Single-Photon Lidar Maps Ground Features Quickly, Efficiently

NASA Technology

Taking topographic measurements with single photons in broad daylight means pushing the limits of precision, and this is what Sigma Space Corporation...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Mars Methane Detector Identifies Harmful Gas Leaks

NASA Technology

Residing inside the intestines of animals and in marshes, bogs, untreated sewage, ocean sediment, and other places devoid of oxygen are microbes called...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Underwater Adhesives Retrofit Pipelines with Advanced Sensors

NASA Technology

B y the time the gas you fill your car with hits the engine, it’s been through quite a journey. Even apart from its transformation from organic...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Shock Absorbers Save Structures and Lives during Earthquakes

NASA Technology

In the early 1960s NASA tackled one of its greatest challenges: sending a man to the moon. The physical embodiment of that effort, the Apollo...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Software Facilitates Sharing of Water Quality Data Worldwide

NASA Technology

Onboard the International Space Station, or ISS, very little goes to waste. One of the more glaring examples is the spacecraft’s water supply, which...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Laser Imaging Video Camera Sees through Fire, Fog, Smoke

NASA Technology

In November 2012, Bob Foraker was strolling through the NASA Technology Days expo in Cleveland, Ohio. He was there to look for technology that might apply...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Water Mapping Technology Rebuilds Lives in Arid Regions

NASA Technology

Turkana County in northwest Kenya has been reeling from several years of crippling drought. As a consequence, the nomadic peoples in the region have...

Spinoff: Public Safety

3D Lasers Increase Efficiency, Safety of Moving Machines

NASA Technology

As NASA planned the logistics for a proposed space station, called Space Station Freedom, in the early 1990s, one of the agency’s concerns was ensuring...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Coatings Preserve Metal, Stone, Tile, and Concrete

NASA Technology

As numerous achievements have taken place in space over the last 50-plus years, a number of innovations have simultaneously taken place on the ground. For...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Robots Spur Software That Lends a Hand

NASA Technology

Robonaut 2 flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station (ISS) in early 2011, but its development has been many years in the making. In 1997,...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Catalytic Converters Maintain Air Quality in Mines

NASA Technology

In the 1980s, Langley Research Center teamed up with the Federal Aviation Administration to develop a technology for the space-based detection of wind shears,...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Air Systems Provide Life Support to Miners

NASA Technology

On July 21, 2011, the Space Shuttle Atlantis, having successfully completed a 13-day mission to ferry supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station (ISS),...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Cloud-Based Data Sharing Connects Emergency Managers

NASA Technology

In a world that’s increasingly interconnected, the effects of even smaller-scale natural disasters or other emergencies are often felt far and wide. Not all...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Emergency Systems Save Tens of Thousands of Lives

NASA Technology

Shortly before midnight on September 21st, 2010, the small fishing boat Ebby Luz started taking on water. In immediate danger and 8 miles from the shore, its crew...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Ultrasonic Detectors Safely Identify Dangerous, Costly Leaks

NASA Technology

In 1990, NASA grounded its space shuttle fleet. The reason: leaks detected in the hydrogen fuel systems of the Space Shuttles Atlantis and Columbia....

Spinoff: Public Safety

Detectors Ensure Function, Safety of Aircraft Wiring

NASA Technology

Pedro Medelius waited patiently in his lab at Kennedy Space Center. He had just received word that a colleague was bringing over a cable from a Space Shuttle...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Oxygen Assessments Ensure Safer Medical Devices

NASA Technology

Alongside the tragedies that are part of the history of human spaceflight, bittersweet lessons have been learned. These lessons have not only...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Collaborative Platforms Aid Emergency Decision Making

NASA Technology

Terra. Aqua. Cloudsat. Landsat. NASA runs and partners in many missions dedicated to monitoring the Earth, and the tools used in these missions continuously...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Simulation Tools Model Icing for Aircraft Design

NASA Technology

Here’s a simple science experiment to try: Place an unopened bottle of distilled water in your freezer. After 2–3 hours, if the water is pure enough, you will...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Modified Fittings Enhance Industrial Safety

NASA Technology

Kennedy Space Center is not only home to one of the largest buildings in the world—the massive Vehicle Assembly Building—it also hosts a number of one-of-a-kind...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Information Systems Coordinate Emergency Management

NASA Technology

The rescue crews have been searching for the woman for nearly a week. Hurricane Katrina devastated Hancock County, the southernmost point in Mississippi, and...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Imaging Systems Provide Maps for U.S. Soldiers

NASA Technology

Spanning nearly four decades, the remarkable Landsat program has continuously provided data about the Earth’s surface, including detailed maps of vegetation, land...