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NASA Spinoff Stories

33:02 recording · AUTO · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

NASA's Technology Transfer Program turns space research into everyday products, from memory foam to phone cameras.

  1. Sharing technology is written into NASA's founding lawThe 1958 legislation told NASA to make sure what is developed for space comes back down to Earth as practical and terrestrial benefits.
  2. Spinoffs follow one repeatable story structureNASA is asked to do something nobody has done, engineers hit the limit of the state of the art and invent, then tech transfer finds who else can use it.
  3. The payoff is public, not profitNASA collects only nominal patent dollars that largely go to inventors as a few thousand dollars in award money, while the real return is jobs, safety and lives saved.
Executive Summary AI
  • Dan Lockney, who runs NASA's Technology Transfer Program, defines a spinoff as a commercialized product or service that came out of NASA funding or know-how, a term borrowed from 1970s sitcoms like Mork and Mindy spinning off from Happy Days.1:53
  • The 1958 legislation that created NASA required that what is built for space come back down to Earth as practical benefits, and the first office set up that year led to patents as odd as a mechanical mother pig built from heat pump technology.3:51
  • An open-cell viscoelastic anti-vibration foam developed for long-duration airplane travel later became memory foam, one of NASA's biggest spinoffs.4:52
  • In the 1970s energy crisis, Dryden aerodynamicist Ed Saltzman, annoyed by the wind vortices thrown off square-fronted semi-trucks he passed on his bicycle, borrowed the space shuttle's soft rounded nose, retrofitted a box truck with steel panels with the Department of Transportation, and within a year every truck off the production line carried that design.10:51
  • A lightweight, low-power, high-resolution camera on a chip built at JPL for satellites became the cell phone camera sensor, earning NASA royalties from Nokia, BlackBerry and others, and during the pandemic JPL researchers designed a ventilator with under 100 parts, cleared it with the FDA, and licensed it free to 36 companies within six weeks.16:09
Key Quote
“You're listening to NASA's Curious Universe. I'm Jacob Pinter.”
— Jacob Pinter0:00
Key Quote
“So a spinoff is a commercialized product or service that resulted from NASA funding or know-how.”
— Dan Lockney1:53
Key Quote
“Make sure it comes back down to Earth in the form of practical and terrestrial benefits.”
— Dan Lockney2:58