NASA Inventions You Might Use Every Day
In 1958, President Eisenhower signed the Space Act, officially creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. From the beginning, the purpose for the new branch extended beyond space ships and moon boots. The law prescribed that its research and advancements should benefit all people, and in its 50-year history, NASA has certainly fulfilled that role.
Although most people today will never set foot on the moon, everyone likely comes in con tact with a NASA by-product every day. Partnering with various research teams and companies, NASA continues to produce a vast array of new technologies and products that have improved our daily lives. Basic steps in health, safety, communications and even casual entertainment find their roots in the government branch commonly associated with rocket ships and floating people. In fact, NASA has filed more than 6,300 patents with the U.S. government.
Each year since 1976, NASA has published a list of every commercialized technology and product linked to its research. The NASA journal Spinoff highlights these products, which have included things like improved pacemakers, state of the art exercise machines and satellite radio. Each product was made possible thanks to a NASA idea or innovation.
But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to use many of these so-called by-products. Read on to learn about some of these familiar products.
1. Water Filters
Water is the essential ingredient to human survival. Since people cannot live without water, the ability to convert contaminated water to pure water is an incredibly important scientific achievement.
Astronauts needed a way to cleanse water they take up into space, since bacteria and sickness would be highly problematic. Water filter technology had existed since the early 1950s, but NASA wanted to know how to clean water in more extreme situations and keep it clean for longer periods of time.
If you look at a water filter, you can usually detect small chunks of charcoal (木炭) inside of them. Sometimes, when you first use a water filter, you’ll even notice tiny black flecks from those chunks. This charcoal is specially activated and contains silver ions that neutralize bacteria in the water. Along with killing bacteria in the water, the filters also pr further bacterial growth. Companies have borrowed from this same technology to bring us the water filter systems millions of people use at home every day.
2. Cordless Tools
When you’re ing up bits of dirt or crumbs around the house with a handheld cordless vacuum, you are actually using the same technology that astronauts used on the moon. Although Black & Decker had already invented the first battery-powered tools in 1961, the NASA-related research helped refine the technology that led to lightweight, cordless medical instruments, hand held vacuum cleaners and other tools.
In the mid-1960s, to prepare for the Apollo missions to the moon, NASA needed a tool that astronauts could use to obtain samples of rocks and soil. The drill had to be lightweight, compact and powerful enough to dig deep into the suce of the moon. Since rigging up a cord to a drill in outer space would be a difficult feat, NASA and Black & Decker invented a battery-powered, magnet-motor drill. Working in the context of a limited space environment, Black & Decker developed a computer program for the tool that reduced the amount of power expended during use to maximize battery life.
After the NASA project, Black & Decker applied the same principles to make other lightweight, battery-powered tools for everyday consumers.
3. Long-distance Telecommunications
The ability to carry on long-distance telephone conversations did not happen overnight. It doesn’t link back to one specific NASA invention—improved telecommunication took place over decades of work.
Before humans were sent into space, NASA built satellites that could communicate with people on the ground about what outer space was like. Using similar satellite technology, around 200 communication satellites orbit the globe each day. These satellites send and receive messages that allow us to call our friends in Beijing when we’re in Boston. NASA monitors the locations and health of many of these satellites to ensure that we can continue to talk to people around the sorrier or overseas.
4. Shoe Insoles
When Neil Armstrong famously spoke of "one giant leap for mankind," he probably didn’t foresee the literal connotation it would come to have. Today’s athletic shoes have borrowed the technology of the moon boots that first took that leap.
The space suit designed for the Apollo missions included specially-made boots that put a spring in astronaut’s steps while providing ventilation. Athletic shoe companies have taken this technology and adopted it to construct better shoes that lessen the impact on your feet and legs.
For instance, in the mid-1980s, shoe company KangaROOS USA applied the principles and materials in moon boots to a new line of athletic shoes. With help ’from NASA, KangaROOS patented a three-dimensional polyurethane (聚氨酯) foam fabric that distributes the force on your feet that happens when you walk or run. By coiling the fibers within the fabric, the KangaROOS absorb the energy from your foot hitting the ground, rebounding it back to your feet.
5. Ear Thermometer
Taking your temperature when sick can be tricky business. A standard mercury thermometer can prove difficult to read, and a rectal (直肠的) one is just plain uncomfortable. In 1991, infrared thermometers that you place into your ears took the work out of it, simplifying and speeding up the process.
Diatek, which developed the first of these kinds of thermometers, saw a need to reduce the amount of time nurses spend taking temperatures. With around one billion temperature readings taken in hospitals in the United States each year and a shortage of nurses, the company set out to shave off the precious minutes otherwise required to watch mercury rise. Instead, Diatek took advantage of NASA’s previous advancements in measuring the temperature of stars with infrared technology.
Together with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, the company invented an infrared sensor that serves as the thermometer. Aural thermometers with these infrared sensors take your temperature by measuring the amount of energy your eardrum gives off into the ear c. Since the eardrum is inside our bodies, it acts as an accurate sensor for the energy, or heat, inside of our bodies that increases when we get sick. Hospital models can perform a temperature reading in less than two seconds.
6. Scratch-resistant Lenses
If you drop a pair of eyeglasses on the ground, the lenses probably won’t break. That’s be cause in 1972, the Food and Drug Administration began requiring manufacturers to use plastic rather than glass to make lenses. Plastics are cheaper to use, better at absorbing ultraviolet radiation, lighter and not prone to shattering. Nevertheless, they also had an Achilles heel, a deadly defect. Uncoated plastics tend to scratch easily, and scratched lenses could impair someone’s sight.
Because of dirt and particles found in space environments, NASA needed a special coating to protect space equipment, particularly astronaut helmet visors. Recognizing an opportunity, the Foster Grant sunglasses manufacturer licensed the NASA technology for its products. The special plastics coating made its sunglasses ten times more scratch-resistant than uncoated plastics.
The eardrum acts as an accurate sensor for the energy because ______.