NASA Spinoffs in Your Life

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

Why?

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