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...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Private Astronaut Training Prepares Commercial Crews of Tomorrow

NASA Technology

In addition to teaching crewmembers to perform crucial tasks like using their spacecraft’s technical devices, piloting a vehicle back into...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Activity Monitors Help Users Get Optimum Sun Exposure

NASA Technology

To the casual observer, the sun appears as a steady, static, glowing ball of heat. But closer inspection reveals our closest star can be rambunctious, capable...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Balance Devices Train Golfers for a Consistent Swing

NASA Technology

After a stint in space, astronauts’ minds and bodies take some time to readjust to life on Earth. While the human body adapts relatively quickly to a lack of...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Charged Particles Kill Pathogens and Round Up Dust

NASA Technology

Before astronauts are able to undertake long-term missions into the solar system, they’ll need technologies that allow them to grow their own fruits and...

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: 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

Ruggedized Spectrometers Are Built for Tough Jobs

NASA Technology

Curiosity is the undisputed hot rod of planetary rovers. Nine-and-a-half feet long, nearly 2,000 pounds, and powered by a thermo-nuclear power generator under its...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Gas Conversion Systems Reclaim Fuel for Industry

NASA Technology

To understand the connection between the development of Martian power systems and technology that can pull oil from old wells or capture gases released during...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Satellite Data Inform Forecasts of Crop Growth

NASA Technology

Farming has never been more productive, but increasing demands from a growing economy and world population mean age-old risks such as insects and plant disease...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Landsat Data Enriches Google Earth

NASA Technology

When NASA launched the Earth Resources Technology Satellite, later known as Landsat, in July 1972, the first spacecraft dedicated to monitoring Earth’s surface carried two...

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...

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: 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: Computer Technology

Schedule Analysis Software Saves Time for Project Planners

NASA Technology

Schedules for major projects get long and complicated, involving a slew of interdependent tasks and timelines, and few organizations handle projects more...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Cloud Computing Technologies Facilitate Earth Research

NASA Technology

Throughout the years, NASA has done more than any agency to explore what lies beyond our world. It has sent rovers to traverse the Martian landscape and...

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: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Dry Lubricant Smooths the Way for Space Travel, Industry

NASA Technology

Most of the power, communications, imaging, and computing technology on the Mariner planetary space probes—cutting-edge at the time—is now the NASA...

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: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Compact Vapor Chamber Cools Critical Components

NASA Technology

Before the Apollo program sent the first men to the surface of the moon in 1969, in the early-to-mid-1960s NASA’s Project Gemini performed much of the fundamental...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Low-Cost Sensors Deliver Nanometer-Accurate Measurements

NASA Technology

Carlos Capiro gathers his thoughts to relate how a single NASA sensor led to a product poised to disrupt his industry. “Really, a lot of it had to do...

Spinoff: Transportation

Cabin Pressure Monitors Notify Pilots to Save Lives

NASA Technology

Typical cruising altitudes for business and commercial aircraft are up to 50,000 feet or more. At such altitudes, the oxygen concentrations in the air are much...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Miniaturized, Portable Sensors Monitor Metabolic Health

NASA Technology

On Earth, gravity might weigh you down, but it also builds you up. For astronauts working in space for long durations, the weightless environment can cause...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Patient Simulators Train Emergency Caregivers

NASA Technology

Medical training is one of the most important aspects of preparing astronauts for space. Every crewmember must become proficient in basic emergency skills, such as...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Innovative Software Tools Measure Behavioral Alertness

NASA Technology

For astronauts working aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in low-Earth orbit, getting adequate sleep is a challenge. For one, there’s that...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Solar Refrigerators Store Life-Saving Vaccines

NASA Technology

Over the years, NASA has advanced photovoltaic (PV) technology in order to advance many of its missions. This renewable source of energy is produced when certain...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Handheld Diagnostic Device Delivers Quick Medical Readings

NASA Technology

In a 1962 speech, President John F. Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but...

Spinoff: Health and Medicine

Monitors Enable Medication Management in Patients’ Homes

NASA Technology

To build a small and mobile monitoring and processing system for use onboard the station to capture, store, and transmit sensor data about astronauts...

Spinoff: Transportation

NASA Standards Inform Comfortable Car Seats

NASA Technology

In the beginning, safety trumped comfort in spacecraft designs for human space travel. Mihriban Whitmore, a manager in the Human Research Program at NASA’s Johnson...

Spinoff: Transportation

Data Mining Tools Make Flights Safer, More Efficient

NASA Technology

When an aircraft experiences catastrophic failure, it’s not difficult to tell that something has gone wrong. But even if an airplane reaches its destination...