Nasa showcases how its technologies are beneficial for Earth based uses in an annual volume called Spinoff. Nasa has released the Spinoff 2017 book, which is a catalogue of technologies that use Nasa research for Earthly purposes. The books have been being released since 1996. There are self driving tractors that use advance GPS trackers to harvest food, CMOS sensors used in action cameras, and cooling pipes for use in brain surgery.
Stephen Jurczyk, associate administrator of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington, says “The stories published in Spinoff represent the end of a technology transfer pipeline that begins when researchers and engineers at Nasa develop innovations to meet mission needs. This year’s spinoffs includes products and services at work in every sector of the economy. They are innovations that make people more productive, protect the environment, and much more.”
Here are ten exciting uses of Nasa technologies on Earth. If you ever wondered how the space race helps the human race directly, then this is your answer.
10. Self Driving TractorsA partnership between John Deere and Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has resulted in significant savings for farmers who use automated tractors for agriculture. On the road, we are yet to see fully automated vehicles, but agricultural fields, where regulations are laxer, there have been automated vehicles for over ten years. Over this period, the accuracy of GPS was improved from 30 feet to an inch. The tractors are used for planting feeds, distributing fertiliser, spraying pesticides and harvesting the crop.
The increasing accuracy meant that there was less overlap in the areas automatically covered, resulting in significant savings to the farmers. The automated tractors can take into account inputs from local moisture sensors on the field, and combine it with the GPS data for a process known as Yield Mapping, which informs the farmers how much of their harvests come from which part of the field. John Deere has weaned itself off Nasa to guide its tractors, and uses their own systems now.
09. Laser based ArcheologyNasa scientists have been using Light Detection and Ranging, (LIDAR) tech since the Apollo 15 Moon mission in 1971. A Canadian company called Teledyne Optech has designed small, lightweight lidar devices for use by Nasa. These devices were used to detect snow in the atmosphere of Mars, and a small bread box sized lidar is on board the OSIRIS-REx, which is on its way to Asteroid Bennu to explore the origins of life. Archaeologists on Earth are using the small, portable lidar devices to peer into the past of the planet.The research teams flew over suspected sites of bison hunting, and scanned the ground with lidar devices. The devices were able to identify features on the ground, and peer through layers of thick vegetation. Archaeologists would then go to the corresponding features on ground, and look for signs of pre-historic activity. Once promising signs were found, the scientists moved in to dig the site, and find remains of bison bones and pre-historic artifacts associated with bison hunting and cooking. The legendary lost settlement of Ciudad Blanca in Honduras was pinpointed using lidar.
08. Heat pipes for brain surgeryNasa has been using heat pipes to dissipate heat from the earliest spacecraft. A non-rotating satellite, constantly facing the sun, is susceptible to damage of its electric components because of the build up of heat. Copper tubes funnel away the heat from the exposed part of the satellite to the back, protecting the delicate equipment from damage. More recently, Nasa has been using heat pipes to passively cool fuel cells, which generate heat. Technology developed by Nasa partners Thermacore, is used by surgeons in open brain surgery.The process requires the use of electronic bipolar forceps, that produce heat. The heat is used to cauterise unhealthy brain tissue. However, the excess heat can damage perfectly healthy tissue, with parts of the brain sticking to the forceps at times. Miniature heat pipes on the forceps increase the surgical precision of the instruments, leading to better results for the patients. Another important medical application for heat pipes is blood warmers. Pipes can be used to evenly warm blood, instead of creating local hotspots. As the technology improves and develops, medical practitioners are finding increasing applications.
07. Blankets to warm babies
Technology originally developed for use in space suits are being used to prevent deaths of newborns in India. Astronauts use some of the most advanced materials in the world to insulate their bodies against extreme temperatures. Phase-change materials (PCMs) were originally researched to manage heat inside a spacesuit. PCMs absorb heat when it is warm, as they shift from solid to liquid, and release heat in cold temperatures as they refreeze. PCMs did not catch on for use in spacesuits, but the technology was licensed for commercial applications, and came to the attention of a Stanford university student assigned to try and create a cheap incubator for babies.Jane Chen developed a prototype incubator that cost a fraction of traditional incubators. A nonprofit organisation called Embrace was formed, and moved to Bangalore as India has the highest rate of infant mortality. PCM came to the rescue of vulnerable premature babies, and after a round of funding from a Kickstarter campaign, Embrace now makes a range of products including swaddles, sleeping bags and blankets. The PCM in these products absorb heat when babies are too warm, and release heat when they get too cold. The products are available on the web site, and an infant in the developing world gets one for free every time a product is purchased.
06. Radios to track flights from orbitNasa hesitated to use reconfigurable radios on its satellites because of the thorough testing done on the radios to ensure that they work in challenging situations. It is much more difficult to test radios for use case scenarios that you are not even aware of. However, Nasa has now embraced reconfigurable radios as the future of space based communication, because of the flexibility it offers, as well as the capability to boost science returns because of higher data rates. The reconfigurable radios can be used for another purpose though – worldwide tracking of aeroplanes.Iridium has operated a constellation of low orbit satellites that provide communication and data services to the remotest regions of the earth. The constellation of Iridium NEXT satellites that are scheduled for launch are all going to be equipped with Harris AppSTAR reconfigurable radios that are programmed to receive signals from a new generation of aeroplane transceivers called ADS-B. This means that no other aircraft in the future will disappear mysteriously, similar to the Malaysia Air Flight 370 incident.
05. High Speed Cameras
For the Orion landing test, Nasa required a camera that had not existed on Earth at all. The camera was to be hosed in a rugged self contained casing that could endure the vacuum of space, a fall through the atmosphere, and immersion in water. The camera would require to catch high speed video in a high resolution, so that the scientists could find out what went wrong and where, if the mission were to fail. Nasa approached Integrated Design Tools for the project, which made cameras for industrial and scientific research applications.The technology developed for the Nasa mission is now used by IDT cameras, which are seeing an increase in sales. One of the key benefits is the creation of a high bandwidth pathway, that allowed the high speed cameras to write data on to hard disks. Previously, high resolution cameras would save data in volatile memory, where the data could get lost in case there was a disruption in the power supply to the camera. Nasa could not take this risk, and so IDT developed a camera that was able to transfer 10 to 12 gigabits per second to a hard drive.
04. Rail monitoring sensorsNASA’s Subsonic Rotary Wing Project is an initiative to ensure the competitiveness of the US Helicopter Industry. Nasa contractors developed a sensor that could RotoSense, a rotational vibration sensor meant to predict failures in helicopter transmission. Wireless accelerometers constantly monitor the circular movement of the rotors and analyses the health and condition in realtime. There are three accelerometres measuring g-forces in three directions. The same sensor could be used in a fast moving part of another vehicle – wheels of trains.Monitoring vibrations in the axle of the train can be used to detect flaws in the rails over which the train is moving. A company called Ridgetop retooled the RotoSense sensor meant for helicopters, into a device called RailSafe. The eventual aim of the device is to identify problems and predict failures before the happen, with long term monitoring of vibrations. Apart from preventing catastrophe, the sensors can also be used to prevent unnecessary maintenance, and cut costs. Such a device is one of the ways technology can be used to prevent incidents such as the derailment of the Patna-Indore express.
03. Nanofibre water purifiers
Water scarcity is a worldwide problem, where over a billion people do not have easy access to clean drinking water. Even in developed countries, water sources can get contaminated, or cut off during natural disasters. Nasa creates some of the best water filteration systems in the world, for use in another environment where water is scarce – space. Astronauts on the International Space Station consume water that is collected from every available source, including sweat and urine.
Nasa has collaborated with a number of companies to fund or transfer the technologies needed for creating cheap, portable water purifiers. These have resulted in solar powered devices, hand cranked devices, filters for use under the sink, and filters for use in remote locations. The problem with traditional filters for removal of virus and bacteria was that water had to be pushed through tiny holes, which was a slow process. Nanofibre attracts the bacteria and the viruses, allowing for more than 10 litres of water to be filtered in under a minute.
02. Ski GogglesA researcher in Nasa’s Ames Research Center was exploring ways to counter the effects of a phenomenon known as center-loading sensitivity. Human eyes are more sensitive to the colours in the middle range of the visible spectrum, such as blues and greens, and less sensitive to the colours in the extremes, such as red. Len Haslim developed a simple, low cost optical filter, that would allow colours such as red to stand out in a field of green to detect foreign objects in a camouflaged environment, such as forests. The lenses were developed to help in spotting targets and judging distances, presumably by military forces, but had another interesting application. The lenses could detect distress in plants, allowing them to be saved before their conditions deteriorated. Robert Brock, an optical scientist, recognized the value of using these lenses for other applications, and founded a company now known as NASTEK.Blue light can be a hindrance to skiers, when it comes to clearly perceiving terrain, so ski goggles filter out blue light. While other ski goggles in the market can filter between 79 to 80 percent of the blue light, NASTEK lenses were first used in goggles by Optik Nerve in 2015. The Goggles use technology developed by Nasa to achieve a filtration rate of 95 percent. Ski goggles are designed for different light conditions, some are meant for low light, and some are meant for intense and direct light. The NASTEK goggles handle both conditions equally well, and are cheaper than competition as well.
01. CMOS SensorsEugene Lally conceptualised Digital Photography at the jet Propulsion Laboratory way back in 1960. In 1990, JPL hired Charged Coupled Device (CCD) expert Eric Fossum to work on digital cameras. Fossum believed that he could improve the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, into a commercially viable technology. CMOS sensors suffered from various issues, including noise. Fossum used a CCD technique of measuring the voltage of a pixel before and after an exposure to reduce the noise. This allowed for a range of commercial applications, including consumer cameras with low power requirements, low noise and capable of being housed in tiny casings.The CMOS sensors invented at NASA’s JPL are perhaps the most commonly used technologies to be spun off from NASA. These sensors are in action cameras, mobile phones, and dedicated cameras as well. Image sensors for automotive, surveillance and industrial applications also use CMOS sensors. The devices are small, light, and have a reduced energy footprint compared to other technologies. Cell phone cameras are the most commonly used cameras now, and these would not have been possible without CMOS sensors.
The Spinoff 2017 book by Nasa lists out many more such innovative space technologies that made it to practical applications on Earth. Users can download the book in .pdf format for free, view it in an html version, or even request a free physical copy from Nasa. There is a dedicated app for the iPad, with shortened versions of the text, but image galleries and associated video content.
