Eight Spin-Offs From Space
Eight spin-offs from space by Heather Catchpole, Cosmos Magazine
SYDNEY: Sending people and high-tech robots into space is not cheap and NASA gets through vast sums of money. This financial year alone the U.S. space agency requested more than A$20 billion in funding. How do they justify the expense? One way is to highlight the many technologies developed for the space program, but which now benefit society.
"One of the reasons for investing in space technology is that it's a particularly challenging environment and one that attracts very clever people," says Matthew Colless director of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Coonabarabran, NSW. "As a result, you get engineering solutions that wouldn't otherwise come up." Here are a few of the coolest things that have spun out of space.
MEMORY FOAM
Maybe you have some in your bed. U.S. aeronautical engineer Charles Yost was contracted by NASA to find ways to reduce fatalities in aircraft crashes in the 1960s. His solution was to improve seating technology to absorb impacts, including a novel foam. Created by feeding gas into a polymer matrix, the foam has an open-cell solid structure that matches pressure against it, yet slowly springs back to its original shape. So successful was Yost's invention that it's now used in everything from wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs to car seats and safety helmets.
HEART PUMP
If you have heart problems this technology may save your life. Patients awaiting transplants or with weak hearts can be thankful that Johnson Space Centre engineers were interested in the way that fuel pumps in the space shuttle's main engines worked. Today's surgically-implanted heart pump, inspired by these fuel pumps and improved on by the Ames Research Centre, sucks blood from one of the ventricles, and pumps it back into the heart, keeping it going for months or even years and significantly improving heart patient survival rates.
OIL SPILL CLEANER
This technology is vital in mitigating environmental disasters. Yeast enclosed in tiny spheres of beeswax, soaks up oil through osmosis. Feeding off ocean spills, the microorganisms degrade the oil into carbon dioxide and water. As pressure builds up, the spheres burst, releasing the biodegradable components. The technology is based on NASA' s Jet Propulsion Laboratory work on the feasibility of encapsulating live cells and experiments in microspheres.
LASIK EYE SURGERY
Laser-assisted eye surgery for correcting short- and far-sightedness and astigmatism utilises a clever tracking device based on technology originally developed to dock space vehicles. The technology was developed to allow autonomous rendezvous and docking and works by rapidly tracking and correcting for small changes. The laser eye tracker continuously monitors small eye movements responsible for our persistence of vision, at a rate of 4,000 times per second. This is four times as fast as needed, allowing lasers to compensate for eye movements that would otherwise scupper surgery.
LIGHTWEIGHT GAS ANALYSER
This device sped up gas chromatography analysis and is used in everything from forensics to food analysis. The analyser was designed for the 1976 Viking Landers to detect signs of life on the Mars. Although it wasn't finished in time for Mars, the device, which separates and measures the concentrations of gases, was refined and commercialised into a portable gas analyser for the commercial market. Similar devices now analyse breath alcohol content, detect chemical leaks, and are used in respiratory medicine and anaesthetics.
WATER PURIFICATION
This water purification system is currently being used 0in villages in Iraq, and is based on a 1994 NASA device that cleans contaminated water by treatment with iodine. The International Space Station's (ISS) six crew members use about 12 litres of water daily. To make the most of this, they purify their urine and sweat and extract water from their breath using a version of this system improved by engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Centre in 1997. It arrived on the ISS in 2008 and is expected to reduce water deliveries by 6,800 kg a year.
INFRARED CAMERA
Used to track air-to-air missiles, in medical imaging and spectroscopy, this infrared camera was developed in 1997 to monitor flames from rocket launches. It employs an array of photon detectors known as quantum-well infrared photodetectors, or QWIPs. Down the track, improved infrared cameras based on gallium arsenide semiconductors that can 'see' a broader range of infrared were used in a wide range of spin offs that can track CO2 particles, monitor fires and detect cancerous tumours.
LIQUID METALS
A metal that acts like plastic and is twice as strong as titanium, 'Liquidmetal' is used extensively in sports equipment, watches and funky flash drives, as well as in industrial coatings, and defence and aerospace technologies. Developed initially by Caltech with Liquidmetal Technologies and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the material grew out of space shuttle research under microgravity conditions. This alloy of zirconium, titanium, nickel, copper, and beryllium forms an amorphous glassy solid without the need for rapid cooling, making it incredibly strong and elastic.
It's good article. as we are in a very advanced generation so we should use new technology and application for each and every thing.
Reply to this