Space Foundation Announces Space Technology Hall of Fame Winners
The 2001 class of Space
Technology Hall of Fame inductees was announced today by the Space Foundation.
Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR), Data Matrix Symbology, and
Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector (QWIP) are the technologies that will be
inducted into this year’s Space Technology Hall of Fame during ceremonies on
April 12 at the National Space Symposium.
Dr. Vance Coffman, Chairman and CEO, Lockheed Martin, will be the featured
dinner speaker at the Space Technology Hall of Fame Dinner.
The National
Space Symposium is conducted by the Space Foundation, and takes place
April 9-12, 2001 in Colorado Springs.
The Space Technology Hall of Fame honors technologies originally developed
for space applications that have been commercialized to benefit life on Earth.
The Space Technology Hall of Fame was established in 1988 through a joint
venture of the Space Foundation and NASA to honor innovators who have
transformed technology developed for space use into commercial projects; to
increase awareness of the benefits of space spin-off technology; and to
encourage further innovation.
Each year, technologies are nominated and go
through a rigorous selection process before final selection and induction into
the Hall of Fame.
To date, more than 30 technologies have been inducted.
The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Intergraph, Barco and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have developed VISAR, a new technology that can
dramatically improve images including crime scene videos.
Dark jittery images
captured by home video, security systems and video cameras in police cars are
turned into clearer, stable images that reveal clues about crimes.
The
technology produces clearer images of moving objects, smoothes jagged edges
and enhances still images.
The application of compressed Data Matrix Symbology is a two-dimensional
symbol marking system developed for the Space Shuttle Program, where millions
of parts must be tracked.
The two dimensional symbol is capable of storing as
much as 100 times more information than a one-dimensional linear barcode.
NASA and the Symbology Research Center worked on this technology and moved it
into acceptance as the standard for auto parts and medical parts.
Finally, it
will be adopted this year as the standard marking technology for all NASA
parts.
QWIP was developed by Lucent Bell Labs; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center;
NASA Jet Propulsion Lab; Omnicorder Technologies and QWIP Technologies to
produce the first operational long-wavelength infrared portable camera.
This
technology, which has flown in space, enables NASA to enhance earth
observation capability.
Its major benefit is low cost compared to existing IR
imaging technology.
It also can reach wavelengths that the existing
technology cannot reach, therefore enabling new applications like breast
cancer detection.
For additional symposium or Hall of Fame information, visit the
Foundation’s web site at http://www.spacefoundation.org.
