This topic came to my attention in another post.  Now, I'll admit, I have a bias.  But I believe that our expenditures in NASA have been anything but fluff.  In fact, direct or indirectly, the research at NASA affects every minute corner of our lives.  From semiconductors to cameras, from forestry to food production, I can't visualize what our lives might be like without this federally funded program.

So here's my challenge to you all.  Name some thing important in your life (Love, happiness, and stuff like that are excluded).  Let's find the NASA connection.

I invite everyone to propose or support!

Cindi

I'm posting my answer using a PC on a free internet.

'Nuff said.

I've heard it said that NASA put thousands of dollars into the research and development of a zero gravity pen. Because of the weightlessness in space it would need to be able to right in any position and under varying amounts of G-forces. After much trial and error a workable prototype was finally developed and subsequently manufactured for use on it's space missions. The competing Russian program not being as well funded and plagued by set backs they could not have foreseen decided to use a pencil.

Ye Oldeste Survivinge Funne And Game!

LASIK and scratch-resistant lenses were developed from NASA technology.

The funding of research into space pens seems to be a myth, although both NASA and the Soviet Space Program bought Fisher Space Pens.

BTW you may be interested in Cindi Jones' book:

Squirrel Cage

You mentioned that matters of the heart (love) was excluded.
This will help fix a broken heart!


Ventricular Assist Device

Collaboration between NASA, Dr. Michael DeBakey, Dr. George Noon, and MicroMed Technology Inc. resulted in a lifesaving heart pump for patients awaiting heart transplants. The MicroMed DeBakey ventricular assist device (VAD) functions as a "bridge to heart transplant" by pumping blood throughout the body to keep critically ill patients alive until a donor heart is available. Weighing less than 4 ounces and measuring 1 by 3 inches, the pump is approximately one-tenth the size of other currently marketed pulsatile VADs. This makes it less invasive and ideal for smaller adults and children. Because of the pump's small size, less than 5 percent of the patients implanted developed device-related infections. It can operate up to 8 hours on batteries, giving patients the mobility to do normal, everyday activities.

NASA contributed to the first live public transatlantic television broadcast via satellite on July 23, 1962, by launching AT&T's Telstar satellite into space 13 days earlier on the Thor-Delta rocket.

Weather satellites. It may sound minor to have a window into the weather up to 10 days off but it has saved many lives. Before weather satellites hurricanes and typhoons where much like earthquakes in that they happened and people had little warning and no idea how bad they would be. Once weather satellites were up they had accurate tracking and enough advanced warning so people could prepare for what was coming.