Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

3D Weaving Technology Strengthens Spacecraft, Race Cars

NASA Technology

Weaving processes created millennia ago have helped create some of the most cutting-edge technology on NASA’s Orion spaceship, helping shield heat for...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Data Acquisition System Captures Machine Performance

NASA Technology

When you launch rockets, even the smallest deviation from design can create big problems—and they’re hard to fix for next time unless you know exactly what...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

High-Heat Cement Gives Ashes New Life

NASA Technology

When constructing high-performance structures, at NASA or elsewhere, materials made from recycled ingredients might not seem like a good fit. But when it comes to concrete...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Optical Filters for NASA Imagers Focus on Cutting Edge

NASA Technology

By the time the Hubble Space Telescope launched, NASA engineers had already set their sights on its next upgrade. With camera and detector technologies...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Fluorescent Diagnostic Test Readers Offer Fast, Low-Cost Results

NASA Technology

NASA astronauts are screened for sound health, among a slew of other requirements, but no one is invulnerable, especially in space. For reasons not...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

CMOS Sensors Enable Phone Cameras, HD Video

NASA Technology

“People told me, ‘You’re an idiot to work on this,’” Eric Fossum recalls of his early experiments with what was at the time an alternate form of digital image...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Rocket Technology Stops Shaking in Its Tracks

NASA Technology

Rocket launches—or earthquakes—are already punishing experiences. But it turns out there are some things that can make them worse: like if the vibrations hit the...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Space-Based Bone Scanner Expands Medical Research

NASA Technology

What happens to bones after months in microgravity? The answers are of keen interest to researchers, who can use the information to offer new insights into...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Micromachined Sensors Monitor Train Rails, Predict Failures

NASA Technology

Sensors originally designed to predict failures in a helicopter transmission have found an unexpected use detecting problems in train tracks. When...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Novel Threading Enables New Approach to Golf Clubs

NASA Technology

NASA scientists routinely pioneer advances in cutting-edge fields like lasers and computer chips, but sometimes it’s the innovations they make in simple...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Mineral Analyzer Shakes Answers Out of Soil and Rocks

NASA Technology

How do you search for signs of life on a planet you’ve never been to? If you’re NASA, you send robots to do your dirty work, sifting through the soil and...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Building Sensor Monitors Power Usage, Device by Device

NASA Technology

When NASA wanted to build the greenest, most energy-efficient Federal building in the United States, it needed a way to keep track of the energy being...

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: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Blue-Light-Cancelling Lens Gives Skiers a Clearer View

NASA Technology

Of all the colors the human eye is capable of seeing, it is particularly sensitive to blues and greens, which comprise the middle wavelengths of the visible...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Connectors Link Data Networks for Orion, Industry

NASA Technology

The Orion crew capsule may resemble its Apollo ancestor on the surface, but all of its internal systems reflect nearly half a century of development since NASA’s...

Spinoff: Transportation

CO2 Sensors Monitor Vehicle Emissions from Above

NASA Technology

Life on Earth is surrounded by, and dependent on, carbon dioxide (CO₂). Plants need it for photosynthesis; people and animals exhale it; industry and...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Computer Learning Program Inventories Farmers’ Fields

NASA Technology

There are now countless Earth-imaging satellites circling the globe, with more being sent up each year than the previous year. Yet with all those lenses...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Cooling Garments Find New Medical, Athletic, and Industrial Uses

NASA Technology

When Bill Elkins started working on liquid cooling garments to keep early astronauts cool, no one saw a use for them beyond maintaining thermal...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Program Predicts Aerothermodynamics of Reentry, Subsonic Flight

NASA Technology

Traveling nearly five miles per second, the Space Shuttle began each reentry with nothing to slow it down but the air. The gasses rushing over its...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Low-Cost Flow Meters Bring Efficiency, Reliability to Nuclear Plants

NASA Technology

The technology looks unassuming enough: circular metal plates with multiple holes in them. The plates usually sport a large central hole...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Professional Development Program Gets Bird’s-Eye View of Wineries

NASA Technology

Virginia might not yet rival California when it comes to wine production, but a growing number of wineries and vintners are cropping up across...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Rechargeable Hearing Aid Batteries Draw from NASA Research

NASA Technology

We often imagine that inventions are born whole: Thomas Edison creates the incandescent light bulb and lights up Christie Street in Menlo Park on New...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Light-Analysis Software Explodes across Industries

NASA Technology

Edward Freniere and a partner founded Lambda Research Corporation in 1992 with the idea of developing software to simulate the behavior of light, basing their...

Spinoff: Transportation

Orion Parachute Innovations Carry Commercial Rockets Back to Earth

NASA Technology

No human venture into space is a success until craft and crew have safely returned to Earth.

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Controlled-Release Fertilizer Takes Root in Fields, Groves Worldwide

NASA Technology

Astronaut ice cream may be an exotic treat for kids, but for real space explorers, it turns out a fresh, crunchy salad could sometimes really...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Power Amplifiers Boost Radar, Communications, Defense Systems

NASA Technology

Normally, state-of-the-art technology comes at a cost. But when QuinStar Technology was subcontracted in 2009 to build a power amplifier for one of...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Satellite Imagery Sheds Light on Agricultural Water Use

NASA Technology

Earth may be the “Blue Planet,” with more than 70 percent of its surface covered in water, but it is still a thirsty planet, with freshwater in heavy...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Earth Observation Spots, Helps Prevent Rainforest Fires

NASA Technology

Since the launch of the first Landsat satellite in 1972, NASA’s observations of Earth from space have famously been used for charting trends in climate,...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Mini Heat Pipes Wick Away Heat in Brain Surgery

NASA Technology

Neurosurgery is one of those things where you want the tools to be as precise and reliable as possible. One important tool of the trade, bipolar forceps, uses...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Carbon Nanotube Resin Shores Up Boats, Bikes

NASA Technology

At 100 times the strength of steel and just one-sixth the weight, it is easy to see why engineers, and not just at NASA, were immediately excited by the potential in...