It's not true, as I grew up thinking, that Velcro or Tang are spinoffs of the U.S. space program. But I can live with that. There are plenty of things that are.
As an easy guide to some of these highlights, NASA has released a clever around-the-house and around-the-city Flash site (link takes you to their multimedia page, click on "NASA Home and City") that details a whole host of common materials that do in fact owe their existence to the space program.
A few of my favorites: The Dustbuster vacuum owes its origin to work Black and Decker did for the Apollo missions, developing a portable handheld drill for extracting core samples from the lunar surface. Most enriched baby food today includes ingredients that were developed out of research into using algae as a recycling agent during long-term space travel.
The first retractable NFL stadium roof, at Houston's Reliant Park, was built with a semi-translucent fabric stronger than steel, made possible by research into spacesuit materials. The same stuff has since been used all over, including at the Denver International Airport, and the San
Diego Convention Center.
And of course there is hyperspectral imaging, which is in all of our lives, right? This involves technology used by NASA satellites to monitor temperature and climate changes. Now also used to monitor frozen chickens.
Many of these space-to-the-home technologies will be familiar to longtime NASA-watchers. But I'm going to guess that a few surprises will be there for everyone.
NASA Home and City [NASA]
(Image: Screen shot of NASA City feature. Credit: NASA)
