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Velcro and NASA

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
March 8, 2012
Filed under , , , , ,

Images: Moving Around in Weightlessness in “2001” and 2012
“With little experience in weightlessness inside a large spacecraft, the experts consulted by Stanley Kubrick in the 1960s felt that space travelers would need to be anchored to something in order to move around. While this is often true for some chores (including the use of Velcro), astronauts will often just fly or float from one point to another.”
Keith’s note: Speaking of Velcro, yesterday, in a hearing with NASA Administrator Bolden, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said about NASA research in space “who knew that we would get Velcro”. Not true: it was invented by a Swiss guy in 1948. Someone at NASA Legislative Affairs needs to do a remedial NASA spinoff briefing to Sen. Hutchison and her staff. This is the same staff (some are ex-NASA) who have been pushing for the ISS National Lab. It is unfortunate that the staff so badly inform this senator (and others) as to what has actually been discovered by NASA – and that NASA (or CASIS) never seems to want to correct these mistakes when they occur.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

24 responses to “Velcro and NASA”

  1. John Kavanagh says:
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    NASA spin-off talk rings hollow and those examples oft cited were invented decades ago anyways.

    • Anonymous says:
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      We took the time to go through about 800 formally documented spin-offs, called all of the principals of the spin-offs and found a large portion were either invented earlier by others or they had no sustainable use. Hard to believe? Grab 20 of them and dig.

      • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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         For a spinoff NASA does not have to have invented it.  NASA could have found the patent, combined it with a couple of other ideas and produced a useful item.  The new item can then be spun-off.

        • blamethemall says:
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          Also use comes into play.  Keith, why do you have to make it political?  Do you really think that velcro, or hook and loops would be as widely used today if it hadnt been used so ubiquitously in the space program?  So, maybe she was mostly right on this, or did she say NASA invented it?

          • kcowing says:
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            Excuse me but where am I being “political”?  I quote KH verbatim. As for Velcro’s use, it was widely used in fashion and other markets before NASA used it.  Check your facts,

    • npng says:
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      Should NASA be considered a “no-spin-zone”?  Or has it moved more to a “twilight-zone”?  Or with zero-gravity (g) would it better be an 0-Zone?

  2. Doug Mohney says:
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    Keith, at the same hearing Hutchinson thought the F-35 was a good example of how to run a government procurement program.

  3. Neil Fraser says:
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    Next you’ll be telling me that Tang wasn’t invented by NASA.

    • kcowing says:
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      Ever wonder what a bag of Tang looks like after it has sat in a box in a polar desert for a couple of years? Go to http://www.spaceref.com/new… see pic on left hand side.

      • dogstar29 says:
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         I remember Tang when I was growing up in the 60’s. It had lots of sugar and I loved it. Now it would make me sick, but there’s something better; Crystal Light.

    • npng says:
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      Yes Neil, many believe Tang was invented by NASA, but it was a Klaatu thing.  A few thought that William Mitchell at General Foods invented it in 1957.  But in reality during a 1951 abduction, Klaatu gave Tang to Mitchell with the instruction the orange powder was a just-add-water lubricant to use on Gort.  And the mysterious phrase “Klaatu barada nikto” directed at Gort simply meant “Hey its Klaatu here to lube you up!”  

  4. no one of consequence says:
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    This isn’t just about how awful it must be to be a staffer for KBH, its also a valid reminder of how PAO has totally missed the boat on communicating NASA’s contribution to our modern way of life over 50 years.

  5. newpapyrus says:
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    Didn’t you guys watch Star Trek: Enterprise??? The Vulcans introduced Velcro to the human culture back in the 1930s. I’m sick and tired of humans trying to take credit for everything!

    Marcel F. Williams

     

    • npng says:
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      Vulcans, yes Marcel, but not quite true.  As Keith has reminded us, George de Mestrel did in fact invent Velcro in 1948, but only after the intergalactic Vulcans abducted George during a hunting trip in the wilderness of the Alps and injected nano-particle sized velcro images into George’s bloodstream.  

      Later, when George filed his Velcro invention he exclaimed “Velcro is in my blood!”.  But no one knew he meant it literally.

  6. dogstar29 says:
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    The concept of “spin-off” is itself the problem. It makes it impossible for NASA researchers to do anything useful unless it can be justified as essential to the one true mission, human spaceflight. Then these “free” benefits are claimed as unintended byproducts of human spaceflight that somehow justify its immense cost.

    We need to get back to the original idea of NASA when it was founded as NACA in 1915; as a government agency that does a variety of R&D projects, sometimes large but more often small, that are justified by the practical benefits they provide to our country, just like NSF, NIST, NIH, DOE, and DARPA.

  7. Al Jackson says:
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    Actually the use of Velcro ‘grip shoes’ was a stroke of genius by Kubrick and Ordway.
    It saved a ton of money by not having to rig sets for ‘wire work’.
    Instead  clever camera work told one it was zero g.
    Wire work was used in the film also.

  8. no one of consequence says:
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    And if you wondered how such get into positions of power:
    Scientists say America is too dumb for democracy to thrive

    • npng says:
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      Glad you posted this NOOC.  All too true.

      • no one of consequence says:
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         What bothers me is what it’s going to take to scare America smart once again. Didn’t like what it took the last time either.

  9. Spectreman75 says:
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    At NASA, it’s not called Velcro. It’s called hook and loop fasteners.