Whether upgrading air traffic control software or honing the food safety practices that keep our dinner tables safe, NASA has worked for more than six decades to ensure its innovations benefit people on Earth. One of the agencys most important benefits is the way investment in NASA pays dividends throughout the U.S. economy.
The latest edition of NASAs Spinoff publication highlights dozens of companies that have benefited from cooperation with NASA. This cooperation means investment in existing companies large and small; it eases the path for entrepreneurs to start new businesses; and it benefits the public as a whole through new jobs and cutting-edge products that improve daily life.
Whether working to send the first woman and next man to the Moon or helping improve the technology that carries passengers from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, NASA innovators are constantly creating new technology, said Jim Reuter, associate administrator of the agencys Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington. Often these advances have wide-ranging benefits well beyond the need they were first imagined to meet. Telling the public that story is one way we fulfill our mission to find homes for the technology beyond the agency for maximum benefit.
