Executive Summary

In accordance with congressional mandates cited in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 and the Technology Utilization Act of 1962, NASA was directed to encourage greater use of the Agency’s knowledge by providing a link between the NASA research community and those who might use the research for commercial or industrial products. For more than 40 years, NASA has nurtured partnerships with the private sector to facilitate the transfer of NASA-developed technologies. The benefits of these partnerships have reached throughout the economy and around the globe, as the resulting commercial products contributed to the development of services and technologies in the fields of health and medicine, transportation, public safety, consumer goods, environmental resources, computer technology, and industry. Since 1976, NASA Spinoff has profiled more than 1,500 of the most compelling of these technologies, annually highlighting the best and brightest of partnerships and innovations. Building on this dynamic history, NASA partnerships with the private sector continue to seek avenues by which technological achievements and innovations gleaned among the stars can be brought down to benefit our lives on Earth.