At some point of your life you probably have dreamed of becoming an astronaut, or at least, you have dreamed of making a trip through the outer space. What many of us do not know is that we are much closer to the space than what we believe; many products of our daily lives have been designed and developed as part of the race for the space, and many of them have been developed by the American NASA.
Here just a few examples:
Smoke detectors have been used for the first time at the Skylab for detecting any kind of toxic vapors. And fire resistant clothes are the result of research in order to protect the electrical circuits of the rockets.
Anti-scratch lenses, including contact lenses, are much more resistant thanks to the NASA, who developed a protective coating to avoid the space garbage damaging the equipments in orbit. Since then, this method is applied to any kind of sunglasses.
Digital thermometers are the application by the NASA of a technology used to detect new born stars. These thermometers detect infrared energy, which we sense as heat. The warmer your body is, the more infrared energy it will irradiate, as opposed to the traditional thermometers, which measure temperature thanks to a column of mercury which expands when heated.
Anti-corrosive paints where developed at the end of the 80´s to protect the launch structures from corrosion and heat.
Wireless tools were originally developed to help the Apollo astronauts to drill the surface of the moon looking for samples. This technology has later been applied for wireless tools of daily use, like vacuum cleaners, drilling tools, etc.
Bar codes, nowadays present in even the smallest product of daily consumption, were originally developed by the NASA to control the millions of pieces of the rockets.
Disposable diapers to live in the space – They were manufactured with an absorbent gelatin which achieved a thermal balance of the astronaut´s suites.
Teflon, used to repel water, today present in pan and upholstery, was invented to coat the Saturn V rocket.
