Hubble's Commercial Spinoffs

The Hubble telescope celebrates its 20th anniversary. Besides opening our eyes to the wonders of space, it has spawned new technologies with major benefits for earth. Among them:

- Sharper CCDs for detecting breast cancer:
http://ipp.nasa.gov/innovation/Innovation35/Hubble.html

- The Globalstar worldwide, satellite-based phone system
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/01/990118075743.htm

- Hubble IMAX CD cinema at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex:
http://nssflorida.org/2010/03/23/hubble-imax-3d-comes-to-ksc/

- Early specifications issued to lithium battery manufacturers:
www.battcon.com/PapersFinal2007/ScuillaPaper2007.pdf

- New composite materials for lightweight equipment carriers made in Virginia:
Super Lightweight Interchangeable Carrier (SLIC)

- New theories about time, matter and space from our discovery of new phenomena in the universe, which will influence the direction of future scientific and technological research on earth.

There are many more technology spinoffs from the Hubble project, both potential and already commercialized, which indicates the value of this project.