NASA spinoffs: Bringing space down to Earth

In a time of "America First," the benefits of space travel are clouded by the smoke of hyperbole. In reality, there has been over 2,000 inventions courtesy of NASA that are making our lives better here on Earth. Every day, we benefit as much from the journey as from the destination. These innovations include new medicines developed in zero gravity; faster autonomous transportation technologies; and groundbreaking advances in computing (launched above the clouds). The map below illustrates the number of commercial endeavors that have spun out of the nation's space program since 1976: NASA has been an incubator of technology since its inception in 1959. This year, NASA unveiled a new web page illustrating its reach into the design of new smart cities and IoT connected homes, called NASA City.