INVENTIONS WE WOULDN’T HAVE WITHOUT SPACE TRAVEL

With NASA’s Perseverance landing on Mars last week, the age-old debate has once again surfaced: “Why spend all that money to explore other planets, when there are so many problems right here on Earth?”  Here are a few reasons.

Without space travel, we wouldn’t have . . .

➢ Camera Phones:  Today’s tech was developed in the 90s in a quest for scientific quality cameras small enough to fit on spacecraft.

➢ CAT Scans:  The Jet Propulsion Laboratory played a lead role in developing the technology, which in turn led to CAT scanners and radiology.

➢ LEDs:  Red LEDs are used in space to grow plants, and to heal humans on Earth.

➢ Athletic Shoes:  Nike Air trainers wouldn’t exist if a NASA engineer hadn’t pitched the idea when working on space suit technology.

➢ Dust Busters:  NASA asked Black & Decker to come up with a lightweight device to collect moon samples. That lead to the Dustbuster in 1979.

➢ Ear Thermometers:  NASA and Diatek developed the aural thermometer, which uses infrared astronomy tech to measure the energy emitted by the ear drum.

➢ The Jaws of Life:  This uses a mini version of the explosive charge used to separate devices on the Space Shuttle.

➢ Wireless Headsets:  NASA developed these to allow astronauts to be hands-free without wires.

➢ Baby Formula:  It now contains a nutritional enrichment ingredient which can be traced back to NASA research into the use of algae during space travel.

➢ Portable Computers – and the Computer Mouse:  Yup. Inspired by, and developed for space travel.

~ Jamie

(source:NASA)