Mistakenly Attributed Spinoffs
The following is a list of technologies sometimes mistakenly attributed to NASA. In some cases, NASA popularized technology or aided its development.
- Barcodes (NASA developed a special type of barcode, but this should not be mistaken for the original one.)
- Cordless power tools (The first cordless power tool was unveiled by Black & Decker in 1961. It was used by NASA and a number of spinoff products came out of that.)
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) (NASA has, however, contributed to its advances over the years. MRI is best known as a device for body scanning.)
- Quartz clocks (The quartz clock dates back to 1927. However in the late 1960s, NASA partnered with a company to make a quartz clock that was on the market for a few years.)
- Smoke detectors (NASA’s connection to the modern smoke detector is that it made one with adjustable sensitivity as part of the Skylab project.)
- Tang juice powder (Tang was developed by General Foods in 1957, and it has been for sale since 1959. It was used in the first orbit missions, which gave awareness to it.)
- Teflon (Invented for DuPont in 1938 and used on frying pans from the 1950s. It has been applied by NASA to heat shields, space suits, and cargo hold liners.)
- Velcro (A Swiss invention from the 1940s. Velcro was used during the Apollo missions to anchor equipment for astronauts’ convenience in zero gravity situations.)
Read more about this topic: NASA Spin-off
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