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NASA: No Tang, Microwaves or Velcro

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing here is a list of NASA inventions from an article titled 10 NASA Inventions You Might Use Every Day:
  1. Invisible Braces
  2. Scratch-resistant Lenses
  3. Memory Foam
  4. Ear Thermometer
  5. Shoe Insoles
  6. Long-distance Telecommunications
  7. Adjustable Smoke Detector
  8. Safety Grooving
  9. Cordless Tools
  10. Water Filters
Microwave ovens and Velcro are often colloquially held to be NASA inventions. Microwave ovens were conceived during radar experiments at the Raytheon Corporation, and Velcro was a collaboration between a Swiss mountaineer and a French weaver. Both predated NASA's inception by more than a decade. And while you may often hear that NASA invented Tang as a space drink, General Mills actually made it for the first time in 1957.
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4 comments:

  1. JoeJuly 26, 2009 at 12:50:00 AM CDT

    Too many people think that NASA has only gone to moon and shuttled around the earth hundreds of times at great cost to the taxpayer without compensating benefits.

    Rush Limbaugh is one such person. He recently disapproved of the federal government investing in the development of alternative energy sources. Rush took special exception to the government offering a financial prize to the person or company that achieves any of the goals that would reduce our consumption of carbon-based fuels. Rush said that the government funds projects that the private sector cannot cost justify. Rush believes that these developments should always wait until the private sector is willing to pay for them. If that were true we would still be waiting for the construction of the superhighway system that is so important to our economy and there would be no Internet.

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  2. kc bobJuly 26, 2009 at 8:31:00 AM CDT

    Agree about NASA Joe. Had not heard that about Limbaugh.. do you listen to his show or get you info other places?

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  3. JoeJuly 27, 2009 at 6:05:00 AM CDT

    I don't typically listen to Rush. I mostly watch CNN and MSNBC. I try to watch FOX a few times a year or when something big is happening so that I get their view from them. During a recent drive to and from KS I listened to Rush going and coming for a total of one hour. It was during one of those shows that he gave his opinion of the government investing in technologies that the private sector can't cost justify. I find it hard to believe that even he believes everything that he says although I'm sure that at least the majority of his listeners believe him. I heard him talking about healthcare costs when he said that people who exercise regularly (exercise freaks) are stressing the healthcare system. People who run, play softball, basketball, etc. have all the broken bones, knee failures, concussions, etc. While people that don't exercise and keep their weight relatively under control don't even know their doctor's names. Amazing!

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  4. kc bobJuly 27, 2009 at 8:59:00 AM CDT

    "people who exercise regularly (exercise freaks) are stressing the healthcare system"

    Amazing.. hard to believe that he believes that.. I dedicated today's post to his rhetoric on exercise freaks.

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