Gifts from outer space

Sixty years of NASA have provided remarkable spin-offs

The United States’ space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (or Nasa), was founded on October 1, 1958, as a direct response to the Soviet Union launching its Sputnik, exactly a year before, in October 1957. By the mid-1960s, Nasa had helped the US overtake the Soviets in the space race, and in 1969, it achieved the barely believable feat of landing men on the moon and bringing them back safe. It has also sent unmanned missions to Mars and Venus and flyby missions that have photographed Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn and even left the solar system. Sixty years later, there are many other space agencies, both public and private, pursuing space exploration programmes. But, Nasa remains the gold standard in terms of achievements and, just as importantly, in terms of the technological advances it has inspired.

Nasa’s style of functioning blended seamlessly into the massive military-industrial R&D complex the US developed during the Second World War. Nasa did blue-sky research in its own establishments, such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It also funded research at other institutions. And, it set specifications, tendered out for the design and fabrication of equipment it needed. It “borrowed” astronauts from the defence forces, and recruited scientists and engineers from everywhere. In 1962, when John Glenn orbited the Earth, he said wryly “I felt exactly how you would feel if you knew you were sitting on top of 2 million parts — all built by the lowest bidder on a government tender.”

Irony apart, this tendering out meant that the technology developed for specialised use in space soon became available in the public domain and was quickly adapted to civilian, off-the-shelf use. Every aspect of 21st-century life is influenced by the technology originally developed for use in space. Much of this is documented in Nasa’s annual “Spinoff” releases, where it describes the technologies that it licenses for normal, everyday applications. Every space mission has led to the development of a new technology that has found other applications.

The most obvious areas where space research has been utterly transformational would be communications and navigation as well as satellite mapping and modelling techniques. Sophisticated computers and autonomous all-terrain vehicles were also first developed for space exploration. Nasa has a huge library of computer programmes, which have been adapted for many other tasks. Many are free to download and use. A huge range of modern CADCAM and structural analysis is done using software originally developed for space research. Then, there's solar energy, which is also a direct spinoff. There are multiple lightweight materials designed to withstand extremes of temperature. “Memory foam”, developed to protect astronauts during rocket launches, is now used in everything from car and aeroplane seats, to pillows and mattresses.

Enormous advances in medicine and biology have been made from studying the effects of high radiation and low gravity on organisms. Space exploration also led to the development of MRI machines, lasers, LED devices, scratch-resistant glass, car sensors, ear implants, high-calorie freeze-dried meals, vacuum cleaners, fire safety equipment, waste recycling technologies to clean water, and removing carbon dioxide from the air, and sterilisation techniques that clean up hospitals.

The list is almost endless and it continues to grow. Human interest in space has led to huge advances in terms of R&D. Also, the way in which Nasa works, by licensing and tendering out, ensures that those breakthroughs don’t remain sequestered and classified in labs. New inventions are rapidly adapted for secondary applications. Beyond the concrete, space exploration has done something that cannot be quantified. It has ensured that successive generations develop an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (or STEM) and budding scientists are subsequently absorbed into fulfilling careers. That ecosystem is now developing in India as well, as the Indian Space Research Organisation spreads its wings. In all these respects, Nasa and the creativity it sparked were, perhaps, the best initiative that arose from the Cold War.