![]() ![]() The devices enable people who've been deaf since birth to hear for the first time. ![]() Food and Drug Administration, 219,000 patients have received cochlear implants. Kissiah's patented concepts were built upon by other manufacturers. Kissiah went on to work with BioStim, a private company, to develop the new device. He came up with the concept for a new type of hearing aid - an implant that would produce digital pulses to stimulate the auditory nerve endings, which then would transmit the signals to the brain. In an effort to solve the problem, he put to use his knowledge of NASA's advances in electronic sensing systems, telemetry, and sound and vibration sensors. They simply amplified sound entering the ear without clarifying it. In the late 1970s, Adam Kissiah Jr., a hearing-impaired engineer working on the space shuttle program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, knew all too well the shortcomings of conventional analog hearing aids. The coating has been applied to bridge girders, pipelines, oil rigs, dock equipment, buoys, tractor-trailer truck frames and even to the exteriors of U.S. used the concept to produce a nontoxic, water-based coating, IC 531 zinc silicate, which readily bonds with steel and dries within 30 minutes to a hard, ceramiclike finish. In the early 1980s, a company called Inorganic Coatings Inc. Fortunately, in the 1970s, researchers at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center discovered that coating the equipment with a protective layer containing zinc dust and potassium silicate would help thwart the costly rusting. It rusts gantries - large frames that surround rocket launch sites - and launch structures at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and other coastal facilities. Surprisingly, one of the most destructive forces is the corrosive effect of saltwater-laden ocean spray and fog. One challenge with space exploration is that equipment must withstand radical conditions, from the heat of rocket exhaust to extreme cold in space. Next, we'll look at an invention with the smarts to protect NASA's high-tech equipment from the elements - both on and off the Earth. A company in Kentucky builds it into horses' saddles and uses it to make prosthetic braces for injured animals. A Colorado company uses a type of memory foam to build inflatable bumper rafts, which resist sinking, for whitewater rides at theme parks. ![]() In hospitals, mattress pads and wheelchair seats made from the foam support patients with painful, dangerous sores on their bodies.Ĭompanies continue to find new uses for memory foam and its descendants. Shoe manufacturers have called on the foam to create special high-comfort insoles. In the 1970s and 1980s, pro football's Dallas Cowboys team used it to line players' helmets to reduce the trauma of impact on the field. In 1967, Yost formed his own company, Dynamic Systems Inc., which marketed the innovation as "temper foam." Since then, memory foam has found its way into scores of applications. patents is granted to someone working on a NASA project. Since then, it's been such a prolific problem solver that about one in every 1,000 U.S. In the 1950s and early 1960s, it created the revolutionary three-axis stabilization control design that enables satellites to point their antennas, instruments and solar panels with precision. NASA has invented all sorts of technology to solve the peculiar problems of space exploration. So you're probably not surprised to hear that NASA employs a pretty awesome brain trust of scientific and engineering talent in a wide array of fields, from astronomy and physics to chemistry, biology and materials science. government agency that runs the country's civilian space program, has accomplished some truly amazing feats since its inception in 1958 - from beating the Soviet Union in the race to put astronauts on the moon, to exploring the surface of Mars with unmanned robotic vehicles. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA), the U.S. ![]()
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