NASA Spinoff
Topics:
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Laser Imaging Helps Archaeologists Dig Up History
NASA Technology
Some 10,500 years ago, what is now western Oklahoma teemed in late summer and early fall with bison, traipsing through the grassy landscape. For the humans who...
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: Computer Technology
Scheduling Software Plans Public, Private Space Missions
NASA Technology
When Alex and Ella Herz were working at Johnson Space Center in the late 1980s and early ’90s, it wasn’t the easiest time to plan payloads for...
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Zinc-Silicate Coating Blocks Corrosion
NASA Technology
NASA needs materials that are strong and can hold up over time. Sometimes that means the Space Agency designs brand-new, high-tech materials—but sometimes it sticks to...
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Vibration Tables Shake Up Aerospace, Car Testing
NASA Technology
When handling a multi-billion-dollar space telescope, you want to be pretty careful. Unless it’s your job to shake it with 100,000 pounds of force, that is.
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Astronauts Instruct Newcomers on Peculiarities of Spaceflight
NASA Technology
Few people are more thoroughly trained for their work than astronauts. After all, their already-complex work is carried out in an unforgiving...
Spinoff: Transportation
Reconfigurable Radio Tracks Flights Worldwide
NASA Technology
When Malaysia Air Flight 370 disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean in 2014, it had flown far beyond radar range. Under a new space-based air tracking system, no...
Spinoff: Health and Medicine
Temperature-Regulating Fabrics Keep Babies Comfortable
NASA Technology
NASA’s astronauts are among the world’s most capable, resourceful, and highly trained individuals. Now technology originally created to keep them...
Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
GPS Correction Technology Lets Tractors Drive Themselves
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...
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 pressing,...
Spinoff: Transportation
Software Opens Computational Fluid Dynamics to the Uninitiated
NASA Technology
Sukra Helitek Inc.’s simplified, user-friendly computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package began with Ganesh Rajagopalan essentially trying...
Spinoff: Transportation
Design Software Shapes Future Sonic Booms
NASA Technology
It’s been more than 70 years since an airplane first broke the sound barrier, and yet supersonic flights remain mostly out of reach for civilian passengers, in large...
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Outgassing Test Facility Brings New Materials into Space Industry
NASA Technology
Anyone who can remember when cars had vinyl dashboards may be familiar with the hazy film that could appear on the windows during a hot, sunny day....
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Polyimide Aerogels Boost Antennas, Insulate Pipes
NASA Technology
The challenge: make a powerful insulating material that is lightweight, strong, and flexible. The goal: an inflatable decelerator that can be folded up inside a...
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Privately Built Facility Offers Advantages in Space Exposure Testing
NASA Technology
The conditions of space are, perhaps thankfully, difficult to reproduce on Earth. Most of the universe, beyond the atmospheres of its...
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: Health and Medicine
Active Pixel Sensors Lead Dental Imagery into the Digital Age
NASA Technology
They’re in your cell phone camera and probably in your handheld digital camera, but they may have been in your dentist’s X-ray machine first:...
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: Transportation
Unmanned Research Aircraft Test Cutting-Edge Innovations
Born out of a desire for aircraft to be able to take off and land capably at airports with shorter runways to alleviate congestion at the major hubs, the circulation control wing...
Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
Software Helps Restore Fire-Ravaged Habitats
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...
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Electrospray Thrusters Boost Efficiency, Precision
NASA Technology
When NASA thrusters are mentioned, most people imagine something like the breathtaking launch of the Saturn V rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon. Its five...
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
DigitalClone Software Predicts, Extends Machine Life
NASA Technology
Medical scientists have made great progress in recent years toward understanding how genetic factors play a role in an individual’s susceptibility or...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Mars Rover Work Spawns PDF Collaboration Software
NASA Technology
Like satellites in orbit, some spinoffs just keep spinning.
Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Laser Vision Helps Hubble, Package Shippers See Clearly
NASA Technology
For more than 25 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided stunning photos of the universe unequalled in their depth, detail, and distinction. Hubble...
Spinoff: Health and Medicine
Tool Kit Simplifies Development of High-Affinity Molecules
NASA Technology
As NASA sets its sights on long-duration missions deeper into the solar system, including a planned mission to Mars, astronauts will need access to...
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: Transportation
Open Source Aircraft Design Software Helps Industry, Hobbyists
NASA Technology
The old saying about the inability to build a better mousetrap could also apply to aircraft design tools. For years, the best, and maybe only, way to...
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: 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...