[ A lot of spin off technology came to the us from NASA.
I disagree for two reasons: 1) You (i.e. the list) assume these items could only have been invented exclusively by NASA. 2) There isn’t a single item on that list that has any significance whatsoever.
So I say again - for 30 freakin’ years the Shuttle went up, the Shuttle came down, the Shuttle went up, the Shuttle came down ... and WTF did we get in return?
And BTW, the linked page has this caveat - “Below are 27 abstracts of products claimed to be NASA spin-offs.” ]
Everyone says Velcro, but we got Velcro from the Vulcans who crashed in Pennsylvania in the 1950s!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Creek_(Star_Trek:_Enterprise)
I saw it on TV once on a highly unpopular show
I have heard that we spent 7 Million $ to develop a pen that would work in the weightlessness of space.
The Russians ................used pencils.
“1) You (i.e. the list) assume these items could only have been invented exclusively by NASA. 2) There isn’t a single item on that list that has any significance whatsoever.”
One of the technologies which was invented to fix the optical problems with the Hubble Space Telescope was applied to develop optical equipment for restoring damaged eyesight, and it was this equipment which was used to repair the damage to my eyes that caused me to become legally blind for awhile last year. This application is just one of a multitude I know of which improve our daily lives.