Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Plasma Improves 3D Electronics Printing

A new approach to printing electronic components simplifies on-site manufacturing of electronics in space and on Earth.

With help from NASA funding and licensed technologies, San...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Ultrasonic Welding Makes Parts for NASA Missions, Commercial Industry

Combine metals and embed sensors with this novel additive manufacturing technique

A burst water main is always expensive and messy, but a pipe...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

From a Lightbox to Lamps

Dale Dell’Ario had a glowing box in his living room, and he wanted to share it.

Dell’Ario had retired in 2013 from a long career in medical device manufacturing, where he’d developed lighting...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Getting Water out of Snow with NASA Technology

How much water is in mountain snowpack? That’s a question science has been attempting to solve for decades. Finally, NASA-developed technology provides an accurate answer, using a...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

NASA Technology Helps in Fight Against Climate Change

NASA technology fights climate change in all kinds of ways. Many of these innovations were pioneered for space travel and planetary exploration before anyone repurposed them for...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

NASA Enlists Trees, Bacteria to Clean Up Earth

NASA explores outer space, but it’s also owner and steward of hundreds of square miles of planet Earth. Populated with scientists and engineers, the space agency’s field centers have...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Measuring Moon Dust to Fight Air Pollution

Moon dust isn’t like the stuff that collects on a bookshelf or on tables – it’s ubiquitous and abrasive, and it clings to everything. It’s so bad that it even broke the vacuum NASA...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Space Pens, Pencils, and How NASA Takes Notes in Space

The Space Pen has captured the American imagination in more ways than one. It’s appeared repeatedly in pop culture and even worked as a plot device in a "Seinfeld" episode...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

From Spacesuits to Racing Suits

Technology developed for space has turned up in cars for years. From space shuttle tire engineering ending up in road tires to zero-gravity body posture studies helping make comfy car seats, decades of...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

‘Positive Energy’ Captures Contaminants

The carbon-based compound in Aquaspace water filters started out more than 35 years ago in Mike Pedersen’s basement, with a stack of NASA research. Now the filters have appeared in the White...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Space-Age Water Purification Anywhere on Earth

Piush Soni didn’t think much about clean drinking water until it became hard to find.

As a gemologist spending long periods in African jungles, he realized he wasn’t the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA Microphone Detects Turbulence Hundreds of Miles Away

Whether it’s in the wake vortex of airplanes taking off or in seemingly calm air, there are few issues more meddlesome to flight than turbulence. Not only can these...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Fix It Like an Astronaut with Augmented Reality

When astronauts on the International Space Station venture outside to install new equipment or perform maintenance, dozens of people on Earth are involved. These extravehicular...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Odor-Eliminating Shoe Inserts Rely on NASA-Tested Activated Carbon Cloth

This is the story of a space-age insert for shoes that got its start when a graduate student with smelly feet took off her shoes and another tapped into his...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Space-Age Water Conservation

The more difficult a problem is for NASA, the more solutions it eventually produces for the rest of us.

Few challenges are more pressing for the space agency than the need for clean water. Water...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

How the Moon Landing Led to Safer Food for Everyone

As many Americans prepare for a socially distanced Thanksgiving meal, some may be aware that NASA helped develop the tiny, highly efficient video cameras  in the devices...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Recalibrating Fine Motor Skills

A touchscreen control panel similar to an Apple iPad seems like it would be easier to use than a panel of switches and buttons that must be flipped and pushed in the right order. But what if an...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Artificial Intelligence for Astronauts Monitors Patients at Home

When chronic pain flares, the trip from your door to the doctor’s office can seem as difficult as getting from Earth to Mars. The same could be said for the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

For Work or Play, Comfort All Day

A new line of gaming chairs combines two NASA technologies to keep users comfortable during even the longest video game marathons.

Raynor Group, a major manufacturer of office furniture, has...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

In Cloud Computing, Open Source Becomes Big Business

In 2010, open source software, once the playpen of renegade hackers and hobbyists, had already gone mainstream. Cloud computing was newer and less defined, but already commercially...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Catch the Waves

It’s very important that the highly tuned components in sensitive instruments, whether on a spacecraft or used in a lab, don’t see their own reflection. In sensing devices across the electromagnetic spectrum like...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Planets Take Virtual Shape on Earth with NASA Knowledge and Imagery

In a time of quarantines and online learning, guided strolls along the surface of Mars are especially appealing.

These tours are possible with Access Mars ...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

New Industrial Robotic Gripper Copies Geckos’ Toes

No sooner had the gecko’s secret been cracked than humans got to work trying to copy it.

“It was one of those mysteries that had been around for a long time,” says...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Space Fuel Cell Provides Deep-Sea Power

“Almost everything you need in space, you also need under the ocean,” said Thomas Valdez, manager of chemical engineering at Teledyne Energy Systems.

Both extreme environments are...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

The Rewards of Perseverance

A laser-light sensor that can identify bacteria in a wound may sound far-fetched, but it’s already becoming a reality, thanks in part to NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. The technology is going to...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Environmental Cleanup Courtesy of a NASA Cafeteria Brainstorm

Jackie Quinn had an idea. What if the system NASA developed for removing contaminants from building paint could also be used to clean up the environment? In her quest to...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA Brain Training Tech Makes Smart Glasses

A new pair of smart glasses uses a technique invented at NASA to measure users' brainwaves and tell them how well they’re paying attention. Others have used the NASA formula to help...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Communicating via Long-Distance Lasers

Visible light has been used to communicate for centuries: lanterns on ships and Morse code flashes allowed information to be conveyed at a distance. But now there’s a better way to use light...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

In the Right Hands, NASA Satellite Data and Analysis Make Earth Better

The number of illegal gold mines in the Amazon is increasing so fast that activists have turned to satellite imagery to identify them. Still, with thousands of...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Flying in the Fast Lane with Air Traffic Software

Think of the national airspace as a complex highway system, but with planes. They’re all moving at different speeds and converging on relatively few airports, intent upon arriving...