This year we will have the 50th anniversary of the first manned landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969. NASA has an Office of Technology Transfer and Commercialization, that licenses technologies developed for space during the Apollo program, to benefit life on Earth. Here are my top 10 from the Apollo era.
Click on the slideshow image below to see my Top 10:
The Moon Boot strongly influenced athletic footwear at the time with its shock absorption capability, excellent stability, and motion control. In 1991, A NASA Apollo engineer, Al Gross, used his design knowledge and replaced the foam material in the mid-sole with DuPont Hytrel plastic. This eliminated the cushioning loss from the wearer’s body weight.
Gross also used the external pressurized shell and stress-free “blow molding” process from the spacesuit technology.
I recently met NASA’s Joe Kosmo, NASA engineer and Space Suit designer. Seen here is a set of overshoes that were designed to be worn over the Apollo spacesuit boots when an astronaut was walking on the Moon. These boots were fashioned with a silicone sole, woven stainless steel upper (Chromel-R), with added layers of thermal protection and beta felt in the soles as protection against extreme temperatures and sharp rocks on the lunar surface. (Image courtesy of Loretta Taranovich)
I think people would be very amazed to know just how much “space gear” has influenced the actual utility of some things that we use regularly on Earth. Anyway, at the end of the day we need to keep innovating and inventing so that we continue to improve the value of the things that we use around us right? It's just that much cooler when you can say that some of the technology in the every day items we have comes from NASA or something!