Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Remote Monitoring Promotes Community Health beyond Hospitals

NASA Technology

Hospital rooms are full of sensors, screens, and beeps. Those sensors send signals not just to screens in that room but down the hall to the nurse’s...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Printed Polymer Makes Integrated Airplane Parts

NASA Technology

Spacecraft fuel tanks have always been round, because they need to hold as much fuel as possible under as much pressure as possible with a minimum of material, and...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Separation Device Launches New Science Payloads

NASA Technology

Rockets typically come in stages, each optimized for different parts of the launch. When each stage has finished its part, it drops away, allowing the smaller...

Spinoff: Transportation

Weight-Estimating Software Helps Design Urban Air Taxis

NASA Technology

Picture an airplane. What you imagine is probably what most commercial airliners look like, a design that has been improved and tweaked—but not really...

Spinoff: Transportation

Virtual Airspace Hosts a Training Program for Air Traffic Managers

NASA Technology

The skies are on the brink of major change. The number of U.S. aircraft flying through the national airspace is likely to multiply many times...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Smaller, Cheaper Lasers Can Detect Gas, Monitor Structures, Take Tissue Images

NASA Technology

Since the invention of lasers in 1960, engineers have found countless ways to create these coherent, monochromatic beams of light and...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Rocket Expertise Assists Transition to Green Energy

NASA Technology

Around the world, economic growth and prosperity is tied to the availability of cheap energy. Coal is abundant and cheap, but in developed countries the...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Space Station Research Platform Paves the Way for Zero-G Manufacturing

NASA Technology

Much of the research NASA does on the International Space Station is designed to better understand how to work and live in zero gravity to...

Spinoff: Transportation

Pressure Vessels Improve Transportation of Liquid Fuels

NASA Technology

Few people will ever pass a rocket on the freeway, but anyone could soon see the “gas tank” of a liquid propulsion engine outside the passenger window....

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Revolutionary Battery Replacement Leads to a New Humidity Sensor

NASA Technology

A lot can and does go wrong with technology, as Dr. Terry Rolin, an electronic systems failure analyst at Marshall Space Flight Center, knows well....

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Aerogel Insulations Save Millions in Industrial Applications

NASA Technology

It’s no surprise that some of NASA’s biggest breakthroughs and most popular spinoffs have been in the field of temperature management. The Space...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

New Imaging Technique Measures Unseen Flows

NASA Technology

Gravity draws water from a faucet into a cup. Air bubbles rise because they’re lighter than the water around them—gas and liquid effortlessly self-separating. In...

Spinoff: Transportation

Doppler Lidar Makes Self-Driving Cars Safer

NASA Technology

Lasers designed to help a lunar spacecraft land on a proverbial dime might help self-driving cars navigate rush hour traffic on this planet. The path from the Moon to...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Data Visualization Platform Helps Missions Fly

NASA Technology

There are so many pieces to a successful mission in space, and keeping track of it all is no easy task. Software designed to simplify the interface between mission...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Polyimide Foam Offers Safer, Lighter Insulation

NASA Technology

Oxygen, which comprises just over a fifth of Earth’s atmosphere, is highly reactive and able to form compounds with nearly all other elements. Heat facilitates...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Beowulf Clusters Make Supercomputing Accessible

NASA Technology

In the Old English epic Beowulf, the warrior Unferth, jealous of the eponymous hero’s bravery, openly doubts Beowulf’s odds of slaying the monster Grendel that...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Balance Scale Predicts, Helps Prevent Falls

NASA Technology

The inside of the International Space Station is designed to give astronauts the illusion of verticality in the weightlessness of orbit. The “floors” are relatively...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Versatile Fuel Cells Stop Natural Gas Emissions at Oil Wells

NASA Technology

In 1999, a NASA engineer and a professor from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) ran into each other at a conference and hatched an idea....

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Zero-Gravity Body Posture Influences Acupressure Massage Chair

NASA Technology

Most people don’t think about how easy it is to sit behind a desk or go through a door—for them, it’s automatic. But sitting horizontally at a...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Gas Processors Turn Oil Drilling Emissions into Fuel for Sale

NASA Technology

Pioneer Energy brings an unusual perspective to the oil and gas industry: many of its employees, including founder Robert Zubrin, have a background...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Turbopump Modeling Software Propels Fluid-Flow Simulations

NASA Technology

Only 12 people have walked on the Moon. That may soon change—within the next few decades, when it simply becomes a matter of buying a ticket. It will...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Satellite Imagery Helps Farmers Cut Water Use in Half

NASA Technology

Irrigation—supplying water to growing crops—is one of the most important ways humans use water. Across the United States, for example, a full 80 percent...

Spinoff: Transportation

Plane-Launched Rocket Opens Up Space for Small Satellites

NASA Technology

More than ever, day-to-day life on Earth depends on the growing number of satellites in orbit used for communications, navigation, tracking, science,...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

AURA Software Tackles Uncertainty in Complex Systems

NASA Technology

The software started as a way to evaluate the reliability of systems that look for anomalies in aircraft components and respond to them in flight. Today it is...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Smart Sensor Networks Monitor System Health—and Themselves

NASA Technology

When it comes to monitoring and managing the health of any system, sensors are the front-line technology. They gauge a system’s vital signs, such as...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Nanotechnology Repairs Engine Damage in Cars

NASA Technology

That spot of oil on the garage floor dripping from your engine indicates a problem. It’s so small that you put off going to the mechanic, until you hear a new noise...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Spacesuit Insulation Protects Personal Devices

NASA Technology

Protecting astronauts from the extreme temperatures of space while they explore the Moon or repair the exterior of the International Space Station requires a suit...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Mission Control Conference System Enables Global Collaboration

NASA Technology

Today conference calling is so easy and common it is essentially unremarkable. Share a toll-free phone number and instantly dozens, hundreds, or even...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Fiber-Optic “Nerves” Enable Sensitive Surgery Tools

NASA Technology

Can you make a robot feel? That was the question posed to Johnson Space Center engineer Toby Martin.

It wasn’t a heart that NASA wanted to give...

Spinoff: Transportation

Flash Lidar Enables Driverless Navigation

NASA Technology

A spacecraft hovers over the gray, cratered moonscape, scanning for its landing spot, and then, in a blaze of rocket fire that kicks up a massive cloud of dust, the...