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- NEW YORK - Two days
after the Apollo 11 spacecraft returned from the moon and splashed down
to Earth, advertisements for Tang " the astronauts' breakfast drink
" began playing on TV sets across the country.
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- NASA Apollo 11 crew in isolation suits after splashdown
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- The ads led people to think that the powdered orange
drink was created specifically for astronauts to sip while traveling in
space. But the immediacy of the ad campaign was one sure sign that Tang
wasn't a true NASA spin-off.
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- "Tang was on the shelves long before the Apollo
mission even began," said Waler Heiland of NASA's Scientific and Technical
Information program.
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- In fact, the three products most often associated with
NASA's early years, Tang, Teflon and Velcro all existed before Apollo.
Tang hit the shelves in 1959, Velcro had already been developed by a Swiss
inventor and Teflon originated in France in the 1930s. The true spin-off's
from the Apollo years may be less famous in their own right, but their
applications have become pervasive.
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- Applied Technology
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- "We take it for granted that we can call anyone
in the world or get real-time news coverage or weather information from
anywhere," said Roger Launius, chief historian for NASA. "But
these things are only possible because we devised rockets to send men to
the moon. Now the rocket technology has carried hundreds of satellites
into orbit."
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- NASA Apollo 11
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- Rocket technology is something that developed steadily
since the U.S. government first began probing space in the 1950s. Other
technologies were borrowed directly from the first manned mission to the
moon. To drill for soil samples on the moon's surface, for example, Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin used cordless drills. Today devices like Dustbusters
operate using the same principle. To relay images of the moon back to Earth,
the astronauts used scanning technology that is now applied in medical
instruments to search the human body for tumors.
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- The gear that the astronauts wore in and outside of their
spaceship have also found their way into commercial products. The astronauts'
so-called cool suits " clothing veined with tubes that carry temperature-controlled
water " are worn today by firefighters and crop dusters. Patients
with multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy also wear similar suits to lower
their body temperatures. And the spongy material that cushioned Armstrong
and Aldrin's steps as they walked around the barren lunar surface is now
found in the soles of high-priced athletic shoes.
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- NASA Neil Armstrong during suit-up
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- While rocketing through space, the Apollo 11 crew had
to be protected from intense solar rays. The insulation that shielded the
astronauts' craft is now placed in walls and roofs to conserve energy in
homes and offices. The radiant barrier can block up to 95 percent of summer
heat or winter cold. A second kind of insulation used in the Apollo crafts
" a metal bonded foam " is now applied as an arctic insulation
to keep oil in Alaskan pipelines warm and fluid.
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- At a Store Near You
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- When scientists began devising a plan to fulfill President
Kennedy's mandate to reach the moon, they realized that part of the challenge
would be finding ways to accommodate people in space for long periods.
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- "The Mercury Astronaut is in nearly continuous touch
with the ground stations and has need for only limited provisions,"
reads a 1962 NASA document. "In contrast " the lunar astronauts
are more in the position of men on a long voyage."
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- NASA Armstrong's space suit including gloves, boots,
helmet and undergarment
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- To keep the astronauts hydrated during these long missions,
NASA scientists developed a silver and copper ionization water-purification
system. As a low volt passes through the system, ions from the silver kill
bacteria while ions from the copper kill algae. The device is now used
in water cooling towers, spas, and purification systems in turtle and dolphin
tanks.
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- Packing enough food for an eight-day journey without
taking up too much precious weight on the craft posed another problem.
As Gary Lofgren, curator of lunar samples at the Johnson Space Center explained,
"The amount of weight we were able to lift off the Earth was limited,
so the more we could miniaturize, the better."
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- To reduce the weight of food supplies, scientists cooked
the foods, quickly froze them and then slowly heated them in a vacuum chamber.
That process removed nearly all water, in the form of ice crystals, from
the product and shrunk its weight by 20 percent. At the same time the food
retained 98 percent of its nutrition. While freeze-dried foods are mostly
a novelty item sold in museum shops, some hikers carry the treated food
to reduce the weight of their packs.
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- Corbis Freeze-dried food for current missions
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- Finally, long-term weightlessness posed a unique problem
for astronauts trying to maintain physical fitness in space. Since ordinary
physical activities on Earth depend on gravity to offer resistance, scientists
developed a lightweight exercise unit that used friction resistance. Today
earthbound athletes use resistance devices to train for sports like football,
cross-country skiing and golf.
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- Test of Time
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- Considering the hefty $25 billion price tag attached
to the first manned lunar mission, some, like Daniel Kevles, a space historian
at Caltech argue that the technology developed under Apollo had relatively
little application in the real world.
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- But Heiland claims it's too soon to draw any verdict
on the technical payoffs from the Apollo years. New products, he says,
are still drawing from Apollo technologies.
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- "Every year we see new spin-offs in health, medicine,
public safety, consumer home and recreation and environment resources management,"
he said. "Sometimes it can take decades for technology to find its
way into commercialization."
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