Teacher guide

Predict

Look at the camera on a phone. Inside sits a tiny chip that turns light into a picture. Did a NASA engineer invent the kind of camera chip that’s in phones?

Circle one. Yes / No

Watch

1. #NASADidThatyoutube.com/shorts/lYgULUuiJBU

Word of the day

Satellite (SAT-l-ite). An object in space that travels around a bigger object, like a planet. The Moon is Earth’s natural satellite. People launch satellites too, like the weather satellites that watch storms.

• The Latin word means bodyguard. A bodyguard sticks close to a person, and a moon sticks close to its planet.
• In 1957, Sputnik 1 became the first satellite people ever launched into space. In Russian, spútnik means “traveling companion.”

Bonus word. Aeronautics (air-uh-NAW-tiks). The science of flight. Aeronautics is the A in NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The word joins Greek āḗr, “air,” and naûs, “ship.”

Questions

1. Raven’s rap opens with “Satellites up, hurricanes spin.” NASA builds and launches the GOES weather satellites, and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, runs the satellites. GOES satellites take pictures and measurements of storms from high above Earth. How do weather satellites help keep people safe from hurricanes?

   Hint. What can forecasters see from space that people on the ground can’t?

2. In 1966, NASA paid an engineer named Charles Yost to make airplane seats safer in a crash. He came up with a soft foam that takes the shape of your body and then slowly springs back. Today the same kind of foam, called memory foam, is in mattresses. Why would foam made for airplane seats also make a good mattress?

   Hint. What does the foam do when your body sinks in?

3. The rap says, “Drop a pin, where’s your house?” A map app drops that pin with GPS, a system of satellites that helps a phone find its location. The US Air Force built GPS. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote software that fixes small GPS errors. A company uses NASA’s fixes to help 911 operators find people who call for help. What part did NASA play in the pin on your map?

   Hint. Who built GPS, and what did NASA’s software do?

4. In the 1990s, Eric Fossum, an engineer at a NASA lab, invented a new kind of camera chip for cameras in space. His chip used much less power than older camera chips. And it squeezed most of a camera’s parts onto one small chip. Why was Fossum’s camera chip a good fit for phones?

   Hint. What powers a phone? How much room does a phone have inside?

5. Back to the rap’s first line, “Satellites up, hurricanes spin.” For each storm in the Atlantic Ocean, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) predict where the storm’s center will be two days later. The forecast error is the distance between that spot and where the center ended up. In the 1970s, the average two-day error was 252.5 nautical miles. The average was 226.4 in the 1980s, 157.2 in the 1990s, 103.7 in the 2000s and 67.7 in the 2010s. From 2020 to 2025, the average was 55.2 nautical miles. A nautical mile is a little longer than a regular mile. What pattern do you see in the hurricane forecast errors? How does that pattern help people in a storm’s path?

   Hint. Compare the error in the 1970s with the error from 2020 to 2025. Then think about who gets warned when a forecast comes close to the storm’s path.

Exit ticket

Predict

Look at the camera on a phone. Inside sits a tiny chip that turns light into a picture. Did a NASA engineer invent the kind of camera chip that’s in phones?

Circle one. Yes / No

Watch

1. #NASADidThatyoutube.com/shorts/lYgULUuiJBU

Word of the day

Satellite (SAT-l-ite). A natural body that revolves around a planet, such as a moon, or a device launched into orbit around Earth, another planet or the Sun. Raven’s rap opens with “Satellites up, hurricanes spin.”

• In world politics, a satellite is a nation dominated by another. The Warsaw Pact nations, other than the Soviet Union itself, were called satellites of the Soviet Union.
• Russian spútnik means both “satellite” and “traveling companion.” Sputnik 1, launched in October 1957, was the first artificial satellite.

Bonus word. Aeronautics (air-uh-NAW-tiks) is the design, construction and operation of aircraft, and the study of flight through the air. The word joins Greek āḗr, “air,” and naûs, “ship.” Aeronautics is the A in NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Questions

1. The rap says, “The cam in your hand, NASA built that.” In the 1990s, Eric Fossum led a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that put a camera on a chip for space missions. It’s called the complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor. The chip needed far less power than the camera chips of the time, and companies later built the chip into phone cameras. NASA’s Spinoff report says video from the older chips would have drained phone batteries and quickly overheated the phones. Which part of the line “The cam in your hand, NASA built that” does NASA’s record back up? And why was a low-power chip such a big deal for phone cameras?

   Hint. Separate what NASA’s lab made from what companies made. Then think about what a power-hungry chip does to a small battery.

2. Charles Yost made memory foam in 1966 under a NASA contract to improve airline seats. The foam absorbed a lot of energy, spread a passenger’s weight evenly over the seat, and slowly returned to its shape once the pressure was gone. Which property of memory foam protected passengers in a crash? Which property made long flights more comfortable?

   Hint. A crash is one sudden hit. A long flight is hours of steady pressure.

3. The rap says, “Headsets? NASA.” In 1962, a company called Plantronics introduced the MS-50, the world’s first lightweight headset, for airline pilots. Astronaut Wally Schirra asked whether the headset could fit inside his space helmet, and NASA gave the company a contract to build one. Plantronics and NASA engineers designed a microphone and receiver that cut out background noise. NASA’s Spinoff report says the company’s later headsets drew on that NASA design. Why do people credit NASA for headsets? And how is NASA’s part different from inventing a product, or from only using one?

   Hint. Sort NASA’s possible parts into three kinds. NASA staff can invent a product, NASA money and experts can help others make or improve a product, and NASA can buy and use a product someone else made.

4. In 1995, Fossum and his colleagues started a company called Photobit and licensed the camera chip technology. By 2013, companies made more than one billion CMOS camera chips a year. Why would NASA want companies to sell technology that NASA paid to develop?

   Hint. Who else needs small, low-power cameras? What does the public get from a spinoff?

Claim, evidence, reasoning

Going further: NASA’s budget

1. At the end of the video, Raven says the US spends less than a penny on NASA for each federal dollar. The Planetary Society reports that NASA got about 0.35% of US federal spending in 2025. About how many cents of each federal dollar went to NASA in 2025?

   Circle one. 0.35 cents / 3.5 cents / 35 cents

   Hint. One percent of a dollar is one cent.

2. In May 2025, the administration proposed cutting NASA’s total budget from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion. The same plan would have cut NASA’s science budget from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion. Congress rejected the cuts, and in January 2026 Congress passed $24.4 billion for NASA, with $7.25 billion for science. What percent cut did each proposal mean? And which cut matches Raven’s line about cutting the budget in half?

   Hint. A percent cut equals the old amount minus the new amount, divided by the old amount, times 100.

3. Engineers judge a solution by ranking criteria and weighing trade-offs. Your turn. Judge the May 2025 plan to cut NASA’s science budget from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion with three criteria. Cost. The cut would have saved $3.4 billion in one year, and all of NASA got about 0.35% of US federal spending in 2025. Science lost. The Planetary Society, a group that pushes for space science funding, counted 41 science projects the plan would cancel, including 19 missions already at work. Spinoffs. The rap credits NASA research for things like the phone camera chip, and by 2015 the market for CMOS camera chips reached nearly $10 billion, according to NASA’s Spinoff report. Rank cost, science lost and spinoffs from most to least important to you. Then judge the proposed science cut against your ranking. What trade-off does your decision make? What’s one fact you’d still want to know?

   Hint. Compare $3.4 billion with NASA’s share of federal spending. Then ask who earns the $10 billion from camera chips, NASA or the companies that sell the chips.

Exit ticket

Watch

1. #NASADidThatyoutube.com/shorts/lYgULUuiJBU

Word of the day

Satellite (SAT-l-ite). A small body in orbit around a larger body, whether natural, like the Moon, or artificial, like a device launched to orbit Earth or another planet.

• English still uses satellite for an attendant or follower of another person, and for a branch office or off-campus facility that depends on a main campus or office.
• Russian spútnik means both “satellite” and “traveling companion.” English borrowed sputnik in 1957, the year Sputnik 1 became the first artificial satellite.

Bonus word. Aeronautics (from Greek āḗr, “air,” and naûs, “ship”) is the design, construction and operation of aircraft, and the scientific study of flight through the atmosphere. Aeronautics is the A in NASA.

Predict

1. In 1965, NASA paid engineers at Stanford Research Institute to test devices for pointing at words on a computer screen. One was a brand-new device they called the mouse. Experienced users had to lift a hand from the keyboard, reach the device and select a target one letter wide. Make a guess before you read the report. On average, how many seconds did an experienced user need to select a one-letter target with the mouse? Give your reasoning in one sentence.

   Hint. Picture lifting your hand from a keyboard, finding the mouse and clicking on a single letter.

Read the paper

English, Engelbart and Huddart, “Computer-Aided Display Control,” final report to NASA’s Langley Research Center, Stanford Research Institute, 1965. The report is free to read.

Under a NASA contract, Douglas Engelbart’s team at Stanford Research Institute tested five ways to select text on a computer screen, a light pen, a Grafacon, a knee control, a joystick and the mouse. In absolute mode, the cursor’s position followed the joystick’s tilt. In rate mode, the cursor’s speed followed the tilt. When a target appeared, the subject struck the space bar, moved a hand to the device and selected the target, and the computer timed each step and logged each wrong pick. Eight experienced subjects practiced each device for about two minutes before testing. Three inexperienced subjects had never used the system and got no practice period. The table gives the values printed on the bars of Figures 7, 9, 10 and 11 for targets one character wide. The authors also report each device’s time with a 30% penalty for errors. Fixing a wrong pick took about as long as striking the space bar, about 30% of the total time. For each subject, the authors added the subject’s error rate times 30% of the subject’s average time.

1. Experimentation and data, outcome 6 Fill in the last column of the table with average time × (1 + 0.30 × error rate). How close are your penalty times to the report’s? Why would the two differ by a few hundredths of a second?

   Hint. Read the framing again. Did the authors add the penalty to each group’s average or to each subject’s results?

2. Engineering judgment, outcome 6 The mouse ranks first in speed for experienced users and third for inexperienced users. Which device would you recommend for NASA’s text system? How should the group sizes and each group’s practice limit your recommendation?

   Hint. Count the subjects in each group, and compare how much practice each group got before testing.

3. Engineering problem solving, outcome 1 The 30% penalty is the authors’ estimate of what one error costs. Write each device’s time with a penalty p as average time × (1 + p × error rate). For inexperienced users, how large would p need to be for the mouse to beat the light pen?

   Hint. Set the mouse’s expression equal to the light pen’s expression and solve for p.

4. Ethics and impact, outcome 4 NASA’s contract paid for the display-control work in this report. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and the Air Force paid for other parts of the same computer system. Raven’s rap says the mouse is “NASA.” Write one fair sentence about NASA’s part in the computer mouse. Then, why does accurate credit carry so much weight when people argue for science funding?

   Hint. Separate who paid for the work from who did the work.

Exit ticket