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March 2001
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Space Foundation Announces Space Technology Hall of Fame Winners
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., March 23, The 2001 class of Space Technology Hall of Fame inductees has been announced by the Space Foundation. Video Image Stabilization and Registration (VISAR), Data Matrix Symbology, and Quantum Well Infrared Photo-detector (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.
Visit: http://www.spacefoundation.org
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