NASA Spinoff
Topics:
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
Temperature Sensors Cement Integrity of Bridges
NASA Technology
When the White House calls, NASA answers.
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Sound Modeling Simplifies Vehicle Noise Management
NASA Technology
Exposure to a noise level of 105 decibels causes hearing damage after an hour or less. Concertgoers in the front row at a rock show can expect sustained noise of...
Spinoff: Health and Medicine
Algae-Derived Dietary Ingredients Nourish Animals
NASA Technology
Algae-based food ingredients pioneered by NASA-sponsored research in the early 1980s revolutionized the infant formula industry a decade later and have...
Spinoff: Computer Technology
Software Cuts Building Costs, Increases Energy Efficiency
NASA Technology
In order to prepare Curiosity for its trip to Mars, NASA had to pull out all the stops. Because the rover’s payload is 10 times as massive as those of...
Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation
LEDs Illuminate Bulbs for Better Sleep, Wake Cycles
NASA Technology
Kennedy Space Center has been known as America’s spaceport for more than 50 years. From Project Mercury to recent commercial-space missions, the nation has...