How NASA Built a Shark Tank for Space Inventions

Heather Potters is trying to get to the point. On a stage at Denver's Air & Space museum, a 182,000 square-foot space filled with decommissioned aircraft, she stands in front of a PowerPoint and describes her company's no-needle syringes, which can deliver vaccines by accelerating the liquid into a superfast stream that punctures the skin. Two Air Force jets point their noses at each other to her left, facing off, just like Potters and the other participants in tonight's NASA iTech competition. Here at NASA's iTech competition, the co-founder of PharmaJet is vying for access to expert advice from the space agency. She and 14 other researchers are pitching diverse terrestrial technologies that they hope to level up to space.