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: 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: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Cryocoolers Fuel Exploration in Space and on Earth

NASA Technology

Studying solar flares and particle acceleration requires cool heads and lots of intricate planning. When NASA was preparing to launch the Reuven Ramaty High...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Temperature-Resistant Materials Enable Space-Like Cold on Earth

NASA Technology

In spacecraft construction, even components like tape can require cutting-edge technology.

During the mid-1990s, engineers at the Jet...

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: 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

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...

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: 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...

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: Health and Medicine

Audio App Brings a Better Night's Sleep

NASA Technology

With demanding schedules, a sunrise or sunset every 45 minutes, and extremely noisy surroundings, it’s understandable why many astronauts onboard the International Space...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Vision Trainer Teaches Focusing Techniques at Home

NASA Technology

Inventions often find unintended uses. The first mechanical clocks in Europe were intended to track the motions of celestial bodies and found their original...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

3D Endoscope to Boost Safety, Cut Costs of Surgery

NASA Technology

“A lot of things are not easy to solve when you’re trying to break through a new technology right from the get-go,” says Harish Manohara, supervisor of the...

Spinoff: Transportation

Aircraft Geared Architecture Reduces Fuel Cost and Noise

NASA Technology

Just 12 years after the Wright brothers became the first to take to the skies in a powered airplane, in 1915 Congress established the National Advisory...

Spinoff: Transportation

Ubiquitous Supercritical Wing Design Cuts Billions in Fuel Costs

NASA Technology

By the time he was visiting what is now known as Armstrong Flight Research Center to witness the first tests of his latest creation, Richard T....

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: 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: Public Safety

Water Mapping Technology Rebuilds Lives in Arid Regions

NASA Technology

Turkana County in northwest Kenya has been reeling from several years of crippling drought. As a consequence, the nomadic peoples in the region have...

Spinoff: Public Safety

3D Lasers Increase Efficiency, Safety of Moving Machines

NASA Technology

As NASA planned the logistics for a proposed space station, called Space Station Freedom, in the early 1990s, one of the agency’s concerns was ensuring...

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: 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...