NASA Spinoff

Topics:

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
Flock of Nanosatellites Provides a Daily Picture of Earth

NASA Technology

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

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: Transportation
Orbital Trajectory Analyzer Takes Mission Planning to New Heights

NASA Technology

There’s some wizardry involved in sending a rocket or other spacecraft beyond the oppressive reach of Earth’s gravity. Long before the first...

Spinoff: Transportation
Data Visualizer Enhances Modeling for Cars, Consumer Products

NASA Technology

Nearly 20 years ago, Pieter Buning was in the early stages of his career with NASA, working on an interactive graphics program called Plot3D. “Life...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
High-Temperature Superconductors Deliver Power without Heat

NASA Technology

It came to be known as the “Woodstock of Physics.” Thousands of scientists tried to squeeze into the Sutton Ballroom of the New York Hilton,...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Lasers Enable Alternative Power Transmission

NASA Technology

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, in his hugely successful 1979 work The Fountains of Paradise, crafted a story around the development of a technology that had...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine
Rodent Research Contributes to Osteoporosis Treatments

NASA Technology

Astronauts know their bodies will be tested during time spent on the International Space Station (ISS), from the multiple sunrises and sunsets per day...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Helium Recapture System Reclaims Hydrogen for Industry Use

NASA Technology

Rising helium prices might not put much of a dent in the average birthday party balloon budget, but they add up quickly for an organization like NASA,...

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 matter into fossil fuel over millions of years, the process of bringing petroleum to Earth’s surface, where it...

Spinoff: Transportation
Flight Controller Software Protects Lightweight, Flexible Aircraft

NASA Technology

Since its founding in 1958, NASA has made profound contributions to aviation, including advancing our understanding of flight mechanics—the study of forces that affect aircraft in flight—and devising ways to improve aircraft performance.

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Custom 3D Printers Revolutionize the Space Supply Chain

NASA Technology

Like a desert caravan, a space flight crew has to bring with it everything it will need over the course of its journey into an utterly barren environment. This has always meant allotting room for every gyroscope or astrolabe, every LED housing or oil lamp. In space...

Spinoff: Transportation
IonoSTAGE Ensures Accuracy of Pilots’ GPS

NASA Technology

To permit safe and reliable aircraft navigation over North America using the Global Positioning System (GPS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has developed the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), which improves the accuracy, availability, continuity, and integrity of...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Improved Calibration Shows Images’ True Colors

NASA Technology

In satellite images, the waters of the Pearl River, which winds around NASA’s Stennis Space Center, are about the same brownish green typical of waterways the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
Magnetic Fluids Deliver Better Speaker Sound Quality

NASA Technology

In the early 1960s NASA scientists were trying to work around a major problem for orbiting spacecraft: how to move fuel into an engine without the benefit of gravity. A scientist at Lewis Research Center (now Glenn Research Center) came up with a possible solution,...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Micromachined Parts Advance Medicine, Astrophysics, and More

NASA Technology

Anyone who remembers the Micro Machines line of toys might be surprised to learn that the tiny model vehicles are positively gargantuan compared with actual micromachine manufacturing. While specimens of the miniature toy collection may indeed have been...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Testing Devices Garner Data on Insulation Performance

NASA Technology

Whether you wanted to know how certain insulation would work on a Mars-bound spacecraft or on an Earth-based refrigerator, you would want to test its...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine
Space Grant Research Launches Rehabilitation Chair

NASA Technology

A stay on the International Space Station is no vacation. During a visit to the orbiting National Laboratory, astronauts divide their time among a variety of...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Metalworking Techniques Unlock a Unique Alloy

NASA Technology

Half a century ago, a scientist at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory discovered that an alloy containing 60 percent nickel and 40 percent titanium could provide exceptional performance for rocket nose cones undergoing the rigors of atmospheric reentry. While the Navy experimented...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Oxygen Sensors Monitor Bioreactors and Ensure Health and Safety

NASA Technology

In the mid-1990s scientists at NASA Kennedy Space Center were experimenting with an unusual substance: cow digestive bacteria. Could it break down...

Spinoff: Computer Technology
Portable Planetariums Teach Science

NASA Technology

By the mid-1990s, NASA was collecting an enormous amount of information about Earth and the universe. For example, the Earth Observing System, comprising a fleet of satellites,...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology
Electrical Monitoring Devices Save on Time and Cost

NASA Technology

The sun requires no introduction. Earth orbits it; life happens because of it; we schedule our lives around its rhythmic risings and settings. Yet, despite its...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine
Liquid Cooling Technology Increases Exercise Efficiency

NASA Technology

The human body in space is as vulnerable as a fish out of water. Beyond a spacecraft’s protective environment, there is no oxygen to breathe and nothing to...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
Air Revitalization System Enables Excursions to the Stratosphere

NASA Technology

In order to test a parachute system for surviving high-altitude bailouts, from 1959 to 1960 the US Air Force commenced Project Excelsior. It...

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: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
Probes Measure Gases for Environmental Research

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...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources
Remote Sensing Technologies Mitigate Drought

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...

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: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
Bioreactor Yields Extracts for Skin Cream

NASA Technology

Most scientists do not question whether the force of gravity will affect their experiments. On Earth, gravity is a constant. For NASA scientists studying the effects of...