Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Space-Ready Durometers Measure Hardness on Earth

NASA Technology

There are no mechanic shops in space.

Following the Space Shuttle Columbia accident in February 2003, NASA implemented additional safety inspections to be...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

NASA Climate Analytics Support Biological Research

NASA Technology

Every few seconds, NASA’s satellites transmit more than a gigabyte of data back to Earth. By 2030, it’s estimated the Agency will have amassed 350 petabytes...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Rice Crop Models Stabilize Global Markets, Enable Efficient Irrigation

NASA Technology

When global food prices spiked dramatically in late 2007 and into 2008, with the costs of many basic dietary staples doubling or even...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

System-Health Monitor Predicts Failures before They Happen

NASA Technology

A young engineering and technical services company is betting that NASA teams at the Mission Control Center in Houston, aboard the International Space...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Modified Monitor Provides Glasses-Free 3D for Pilots, Gamers

NASA Technology

When flying the increasingly crowded skies, pilots need to have an arsenal of information at the ready: altitude, airspeed, fuel level, distance to...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Pressure Garments Save New Mothers’ Lives

NASA Technology

In 1969 NASA Ames Research Center received an unusual call for help: a local woman who had given birth continued to experience abdominal bleeding weeks later despite...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Electro-Optic Ceramic Creates High-Speed Fiber-Optic Networks

NASA Technology

By 2002, Corning Applied Technologies had developed a new electro-optic ceramic material, one that promised efficient, effective, rugged, low-cost...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Tiny Capsules Enable a World of Possibilities

NASA Technology

Big opportunities sometimes come in the smallest packages.

In the early 1980s, NASA engineers and researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Cost-Saving Method Yields Solar Cells for Exploration, Gadgets

NASA Technology

It’s expensive to fly to low-Earth orbit, let alone Mars and beyond. Engines are still propelled primarily by burning liquid fuel, but future...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Antimicrobial Agent Updates Ancient Industry of Prayer Mats

NASA Technology

Although it is one of the most abundant organic compounds on Earth, chitin is not among the best understood. For example, chitosan, a derivative of...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Artificial Intelligence Targets Advertising by Understanding User

NASA Technology

A couple of years ago, AJ Abdallat went online and bought a bracelet from a major department store as a gift for his wife. He wasn’t happy with...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Multispectral Satellite Imagery Shows Farmers’ Fields in New Light

NASA Technology

L anny Faleide founded his Agri ImaGIS company, now called Satshot Inc., in 1994 on an idea that may have given offense to the day’s tillers...

Spinoff: Transportation

Lightweight, Ultra-Strong Nanotubes to Transform Industry

NASA Technology

In June of 1991, Japanese scientist Sumio Iijima had been studying fullerenes, man-made molecules made up entirely of carbon, when he discovered under an...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Open Source Tools Popularize Infrastructure for Cloud Computing

NASA Technology

When a small group of NASA software developers met with representatives of Rackspace Inc. at a Thai restaurant in early 2010, few would have...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Modeling Software Helps Rocket Scientists Go with the Flow

NASA Technology

Rocket science and simplicity don’t normally go hand in hand, but that’s what NASA had in mind when the Agency developed the Fastrac turbopump in the...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Space Blanket-Inspired Cases Protect Expensive Devices

NASA Technology

Nick Blanton spends a lot of time outdoors, skiing in the winter months and hiking when the weather’s warm. All of this takes a toll on his electronic...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Heat-Reflecting Material Regulates Body Temperature

NASA Technology

F rom its beginnings, the U.S. X-Plane Program has delivered big on its objective: to advance aviation science and technology through the use of experimental...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Photocatalytic Water Splitter Stores Energy as Hydrogen

NASA Technology

At a glance, the surface of Mars appears to offer little in the way of natural resources. Scenes captured by the various rovers exploring the planet depict...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Algorithm Predicts and Evaluates Storm Surges

NASA Technology

It was sometime in late 2004, and Tom Stanley, technical monitor and small business technical advisor out of Stennis Space Center, took to studying newly completed...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Space-Ready Spectrometer Offers Terrestrial Advantages

NASA Technology

In the 1990s, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientist Joy Crisp oversaw an effort to get a cutting-edge, ruggedized, lightweight spectrometer on a lander...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Recycling Technology Converts Plastic Waste to Energy

NASA Technology

Glenn Research Center has always been in the business of perfecting engines. During World War II, the center, then called the Aircraft Engine Research...

Spinoff: Transportation

Multidisciplinary Software to Help Take Aircraft to the Next Level

NASA Technology

Consider any component of a modern passenger airplane, and you’ll discover a remarkable amount of engineering complexity that went into its...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Software Optimizes Designs from Spaceships to Wind Turbines

NASA Technology

Sharing computer code with the private sector has become a major component of NASA’s Technology Transfer Program, with the Agency’s latest software...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

CO₂ Recovery System Saves Brewers Money, Puts Bubbles into Beer

NASA Technology

Building on work he and his companies did with Johnson Space Center’s In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) team, Robert Zubrin has developed and...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Hydrogen Detection Tape Saves Time and Lives

NASA Technology

From the Apollo missions through the Space Shuttle Program, NASA has relied on liquid hydrogen as a fuel source for the upper stages of its rocket launches. The reason...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Buildings for Manipulating Magnetism Revolutionize Magnetometers

NASA Technology

In a corner of Ames Research Center in California stand a pair of rather unusual buildings, where mere mortals can control magnetic...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Wide Area Thermal Imaging System Brings the Landscape into Focus

NASA Technology

Finding a forest fire can be more difficult than some would expect. Seeing smoke in the distance indicates a problem, but determining the exact...

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...

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: 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...