Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Open Source Initiative Powers Real-Time Data Streams

NASA Technology

Let’s say you are an academic researcher who needs to collect data over a long period of time, on a site hundreds of miles from your base of operation. You...

Spinoff: Transportation

Experiments Result in Safer, Spin-Resistant Aircraft

NASA Technology

James M. Patton Jr. completed a whopping 8,000 spin turns throughout his career at NASA. As a research pilot at Langley Research Center, Patton and his...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Cameras Monitor Spacecraft Integrity to Prevent Failures

NASA Technology

Is there—or was there ever—life on Mars? In August 2012 NASA’s Curiosity rover touched down on the surface of Mars in an attempt to answer what has...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Deformable Mirrors Capture Exoplanet Data, Reflect Lasers

NASA Technology

We have always wondered: Is there other life out there? Are there other planets like our own, orbiting other stars like our Sun? In the early 1990s,...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Air Systems Provide Life Support to Miners

NASA Technology

On July 21, 2011, the Space Shuttle Atlantis, having successfully completed a 13-day mission to ferry supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station (ISS),...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Processor Units Reduce Satellite Construction Costs

NASA Technology

In December 2008, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center entered into an agreement with the Department of Defense and the Van Braun Center for Space Innovation...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Thermal Materials Drive Professional Apparel Line

NASA Technology

From the time he was a Boy Scout, Gihan Amarasiriwardena had a fascination with performance materials. While growing up in the northeastern United States, he...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Procedure-Authoring Tool Improves Safety on Oil Rigs

NASA Technology

On May 11, 2013, two astronauts emerged from the interior of the International Space Station (ISS) and worked their way toward the far end of spacecraft. Over...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Shuttle Engine Designs Revolutionize Solar Power

NASA Technology

One of the hottest solar energy plants in the world was developed with engineering expertise derived from one of the hottest space technologies ever engineered:...

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...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Software Simplifies the Sharing of Numerical Models

NASA Technology

Scientists at NASA not only focus on advancing space exploration; they study what is happening in the Earth’s atmosphere as well. The Global Climate...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Radiant Barriers Save Energy in Buildings

NASA Technology

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s—a satelloon?

That’s what researchers and designers at Langley Research Center nicknamed Echo I, the first NASA...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Software Accelerates Computing Time for Complex Math

NASA Technology

The 19th century mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, the astronomer par excellence of his day, called mathematics “the queen of the sciences.” If Gauss...

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: Computer Technology

Virtual Machine Language Controls Remote Devices

NASA Technology

Virtually all of Chris Grasso’s academic and professional career has been built on NASA technology. “I’ve been working with NASA since college,” he...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Thermal Materials Protect Priceless, Personal Keepsakes

NASA Technology

Most of us cannot comprehend the task of building something to withstand temperatures over 4,000 °F—but NASA can. The space shuttles endured such...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Catalytic Converters Maintain Air Quality in Mines

NASA Technology

In the 1980s, Langley Research Center teamed up with the Federal Aviation Administration to develop a technology for the space-based detection of wind shears,...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Satellite Data Aid Monitoring of Nation’s Forests

NASA Technology

Joe Spruce’s last name is a fitting one: Spruce is a research scientist at NASA’s Stennis Space Center working with the US Department of Agriculture Forest...

Spinoff: Environmental and Agricultural Resources

Programs Visualize Earth and Space for Interactive Education

NASA Technology

Incredible sights are being seen, thanks to the development of technology both inside and outside of NASA. With just a few clicks, NASA’s Eyes on the...

Spinoff: Public Safety

Robots Spur Software That Lends a Hand

NASA Technology

Robonaut 2 flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station (ISS) in early 2011, but its development has been many years in the making. In 1997,...

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: Public Safety

Coatings Preserve Metal, Stone, Tile, and Concrete

NASA Technology

As numerous achievements have taken place in space over the last 50-plus years, a number of innovations have simultaneously taken place on the ground. For...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

NASA-Enhanced Water Bottles Filter Water on the Go

NASA Technology

Thanks to NASA bscience missions, researchers are finding that water may be more plentiful in space than we previously believed. The Lunar Crater Observation and...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Vision Algorithms Catch Defects in Screen Displays

NASA Technology

NASA has sent more than a few robotic missions into space, but it never loses sight of its goal to enable human exploration of the cosmos. A core component of...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Reactors Save Energy, Costs for Hydrogen Production

NASA Technology

When flying, do you ever wonder how the electronics—lights, air vents, or WiFi—continue to function as you glide across the sky? Commercial aircraft supply...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Testing Devices Garner Data on Insulation Performance

NASA Technology

Whether you wanted to know how certain insulation would work on a Mars-bound spacecraft or on an Earth-based refrigerator, you would want to test its...

Spinoff: Industrial Productivity & Manufacturing Technology

Oxygen Sensors Monitor Bioreactors and Ensure Health and Safety

NASA Technology

In the mid-1990s scientists at NASA Kennedy Space Center were experimenting with an unusual substance: cow digestive bacteria. Could it break down...

Spinoff: Consumer, Home, and Recreation

Brainwave Monitoring Software Improves Distracted Minds

NASA Technology

Imagine moving an object using only your mind. Software company Unique Logic’s Time on Task exercise makes that feat possible, at least on a computer...

Spinoff: Computer Technology

Micro-Accelerometers Monitor Equipment Health

NASA Technology

Objects that orbit the Earth, such as the International Space Station (ISS), provide a unique environment called zero-g, or more correctly, microgravity. All objects...

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...