You have NASA to thank for wireless headphones and vacuum cleaners

Many people see space exploration as a waste of resources. Of course, there is the counter-argument that scientific discoveries have intrinsic cultural value, that space-related initiatives often promote international cooperation, or that the space sector is of crucial technological and economic importance.

But the most effective argument may simply be to point to the many everyday objects that would not exist without space exploration. NASA spinoff— a division of the U.S. space agency’s Technology Transfer Program — collects nearly every commercial technology that has come out of U.S. space exploration. It reveals that no space program has had a greater impact on everyday life than the Apollo moon missions.