The technologies NASA develops don’t just blast off into space. They also improve our lives here on Earth. Life-saving search-and-rescue tools, implantable medical devices, advances in commercial aircraft safety, increased accuracy in weather forecasting, and the miniature cameras in our cellphones are just some of the examples of NASA-developed technology used in products today.

FACET flexible software helps air traffic control centers improve airline safety and efficiency. It includes programs and databases that implement models of weather, airspace, airports, navigation aids, aircraft performance, and aircraft trajectories.

This technology uses recent advances in Radio Frequency Identification Devices, combined with smart software, to create an electronic firefighter evacuation trail and fire safety information location system. The trail can be followed out of a burning building even if interrupted by changing fire conditions.

NASA’s Technology Transfer Program is a true national asset. It brings together the space agency’s most capable problem-solvers with America’s brightest commercial and entrepreneurial leaders in partnerships that transfer groundbreaking NASA technologies to the public. It provides solutions for challenges in the fields of health and medicine, industrial production, communications, transportation, consumer goods, public safety, and many more. And, in so doing, it helps create new products, new markets, and new jobs that enhance the quality of life in America and fuel the U.S. economy.

This technology represents a significant improvement over commercial state-of-the-art magnets. These superconducting magnets are very versatile and can be used in a number of applications requiring magnetic fields at low temperature, such as in MRI machines, mass spectrometers, and particle accelerators.

This method offers a way of processing and recycling liquids to remove contaminants. The two-step process provides a contaminant treatment pouch, called a “urine cell” or “contaminant cell,” that converts urine or another liquid containing contaminants into a fortified drink, engineered to meet human hydration, electrolyte, and caloric requirements.

Atomic oxygen oxidizes and removes biologically active contaminants, and reduces the contaminant to an inactive ash. Thus, the contaminant is both sterile and biologically inactive. The resulting surface is entirely free of any bacteria, viruses, prions, cells, or any organic matter. Currently, 3/4 of orthopedic implants have measurable amounts of endotoxins. Atomic oxygen could totally eliminate these endotoxins, greatly reducing chances of post-operative inflammation.

This invention is a system for managing a project that includes multiple tasks and workers. Periodic monthly, task plan, schedule, and budget reports are generated and made available for display or further analysis. When the system receives a description of a skill set needed for a project, the skill set module is queried. The name and relevant skill(s) possessed by each worker is displayed in a visually perceptible format.

This technology provides automated sample handling and movement of coarse-grained powder or other solid materials to enable analysis by a robotic or totally automated computer system. The powder is handled as a fluid, using mechanical vibrations in conjunction with a driving force, and requiring few or no moving parts.

A handheld laser torch was designed for welding and brazing metals to repair hard-to-reach space shuttle engine nozzles. It incorporates various manual controls and changing lenses to allow the operator to adjust the laser’s power output in real time. Applications are likely to be in-field welding and brazing of damaged equipment where traditional welding systems cannot easily access the welding area.