Indiana Alumni Magazine
NASA Technology Spin-offs
From unmanned missions:
Gemini 12. Photo courtesy NASA-HQ-GRIN
- Satellite and cellular telephone communications
- Remote vital signs monitoring
- Food safety guidelines
- Satellite-based search-and-rescue system that has saved 13,000 lives
- Airport runway grooving to prevent hydroplaning
- Hydroponic agriculture research increasing crop yields five times
- Improved hurricane tracking through NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
- Microelectromechanical systems developed at NASA in the 1970s are now a $3 billion per year industry, and used in everything from automobile airbags to pacemakers and washing machines.
- Rapid response protocols for wildfires along with the U.S. Air Force
- Breast cancer diagnosis — mammograms can now use a needle instead of a scalpel due to technology from the Hubble Space Telescope
- Jaws of life
- Age of the universe now estimated at 13.7 billion years with a 1 percent margin of error through the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Explorer satellite
- NASA and Pearson education have developed new science textbooks for 100 million elementary- and middle-school students
Apollo:
- CAT Scanner
- MRI Machine
- Kidney dialysis machines
- Cordless power tools
- Water-purification technologies
- Freeze-dried food
Shuttle:
- Artificial heart
- Automotive insulation
- Diagnostic instruments and bioreactors
- Land-mine removal
- Video-tracking software
- Prosthesis materials
International Space Station:
- Bolts that can be pushed into place, not screwed
- Autonomous robotic arms that can catch a major-league fast ball
- Faster microwave oven that uses jets of hot air
- Low-vision enhancement