[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 12857]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             NASA'S TECHNOLOGY IS BETTER TODAY FOR EVERYONE

                                 ______
                                 

                              HON. TED POE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 18, 2008

  Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, 
better known as NASA, has been an ubiquitous aspect of American life 
since its inception in 1958. This organization brought the United 
States supremacy outside of the atmosphere and took us to the moon. 
They reinvigorated the imaginations of children who applied greater 
concentration to their studies of math and science. Recent 
accomplishments, such as the International Space Station and many 
unmanned probes, have been less in the public purview, but have 
extended scientific knowledge into the realm of what was previously 
thought to be science fiction. NASA, contrary to popular belief, was 
not the inventor of Velcro or Tang, yet it has managed to stay in the 
lives of Americans despite its lower profile by creating critical 
elements of some of the most important technology in use today. NASA 
helps to lower food prices by increasing food production five-fold 
based on research done on growth in outer space. Their design 
technology helps manufacturers to create cars, the electric guitar of 
favorite bands, planes, and skyscrapers. NASA created the temper 
material that is used in Tempur-Pedic beds, prosthetics, and many 
wheelchair seats. They are responsible for imaging technology that 
allows CAT scans, advanced MRIs, and new infrared mammograms that 
increase detection rates by 98 percent. They even made the needles with 
small silicon chips that reduce the need for invasive surgery when 
performing biopsies. NASA created the necessary technology for 
pacemakers, portable dialysis machines, and programmable insulin pumps 
which use digital telemetry. Laser eye surgeries are performed with the 
technology that enables the shuttle to dock with the space station. 
They are responsible for blood pressure monitors, heart monitors, and 
laser angioplasties. Bringing it closer to home, NASA created scratch-
resistant lenses, polarized sunglasses lenses, and the satellite 
communication technology which brought about cell phones. The roads 
America drives on have grooves cut into them because NASA realized that 
it would help reduce hydroplaning, which has contributed to an 85 
percent reduction in wet weather traffic accidents. Robotics, world-
wide search and rescue systems, space blankets, light emitting diodes 
or LEDs, cancer treatments, and the list goes on and on. Describing, or 
even mentioning, all of them would be a feat that would result in a 
book hundreds of pages long. In fact, NASA is forced to pare down all 
of its technological inventions to its top 40-50 each year in its 
annual publication Spinoff. A world without the technologies developed 
by NASA would be one without your digital camera or your iPod. NASA may 
not have sent a man to Mars, yet, but they may be taking us all along 
with them when they go.

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