Reflecting on Space Benefits: A Shining Example
Consumer, Home, and Recreation
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
NASA has long been known for having developed the thin,
shiny reflective material used to insulate everything
from the Hubble Space Telescope to hikers, from the Mars
rovers to marathon runners, from computers to campers,
from satellites to sun shields, and from rockets to residences.
It is one of the simplest, yet most versatile spinoffs
to come out of the Agency.
The insulating material, a strong, plastic, vacuum-metallized
film with a highly-efficient, infrared-reflective, vapor-deposited
coating of aluminum, was created to be very lightweight
in order to minimize weight impact on vehicle payload
while also protecting spacecraft, equipment, and personnel
from the extreme temperature fluctuations of space.
It has been employed on virtually all manned and unmanned
NASA missions. The shiny insulation which coated the
base of the Apollo lunar landing vehicles is perhaps
one of the most memorable early displays of this technology,
and the bright, reflective honeycomb on the James
Webb Space Telescope prototype is a testament to its lasting
usefulness.
Partnership
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During
the first days Skylab was in space, the station
was besieged by problems caused when the meteoroid
shield that was designed to protect it from micro-meteorites
and the Sun’s intense heat tore off during launch.
Scientists, engineers, astronauts, and management
personnel at Marshall Space Flight Center and elsewhere
worked to devise the means for its rescue. Their
solution was to deploy a reflective parasol-like
sunshield. Concern over the possibility that the
parasol would deteriorate with prolonged exposure
to the Sun’s rays prompted the installation of
a second sunshield (pictured here) during the Skylab-3
mission. |
The material is created by depositing vaporized aluminum
onto thin plastic substrates. The result is a thin, flexible
material that provides superior thermal-reflective properties.
The highly pure aluminum coatings are carefully matched
to their substrates to efficiently redirect infrared
energy—infrared waves being the chief component of thermal
energy in the near-vacuum conditions of outer space—to
create either first- or second-surface reflecting. In
some instances, the material is intended to deflect the
infrared rays, and in other cases, it is meant to conserve
them as a passive warming system.
Early in the Space Program, the National Metallizing
Division of Standard Packaging Corporation, headquartered
in Cranbury, New Jersey, was a supplier of this reflective
material to NASA. In fact, it was one of the original
subcontractors NASA turned to for design and supply of
the material, and it was able to branch off from this
work into the more general, terrestrial insulating applications,
like building insulation.
It was National Metallizing that NASA turned to for assistance
when, in May 1973, during the first few days that Skylab was in orbit, it was malfunctioning and overheating.
A heat shield broke off during launch, and air temperature
inside the orbiting station began approaching 130 °F.
NASA was concerned about the condition of food, film,
and other equipment inside, as well as plastic insulation
and possible toxic gases if the temperature rose too
high. The staff at National Metallizing was called upon
by engineers at Marshall
Space Flight Center to help
create an emergency parasol-type sunshield that helped
save millions of dollars worth of equipment, years of
research, and allowed, for the first time, a habitat
for astronauts to live and work in space.
Through a series of mergers, acquisitions, and transfers
of ownership, National Metallizing’s factory doors eventually
closed. A former employee, though, David Deigan, took
advantage of the remarkable material the company had
been manufacturing for NASA and founded a company to
continue producing it, branding it as Heatsheets. The
company, AFMInc, was originally founded as JSC Enterprises,
a solely owned proprietorship, in Ridgewood, New Jersey.
The “J” stood for Jennifer, “S” for Stephanie, and the
“C” for Christopher, the names of Deigan’s three children.
He incorporated in 1982 as AFMInc (Advanced Flexible
Materials), because the name JSC, Inc. was already taken,
but the company’s story actually goes back a few decades
further than this.
Product Outcome
In 1959, the Russians were the first to successfully
launch a probe to the far side of the Moon—and return
pictures—thus firing the starter pistol for the Space
Race. Meanwhile, back in New York, a high schooler, David
Deigan, heard a similar shot ring out, and on a lark
with some friends, fell in step with a crowd running
a marathon. With little prior training, he still managed
to finish the event, and even though he paid for it with
muscle aches and soreness, he had caught the marathon
bug.
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Runners
winding down after the 2005 Boston Marathon. When
they stop running, body temperatures drop rapidly.
The reflective blankets, which have become standard
at marathons worldwide, help stabilize body temperatures. |
Granted, the illness remained dormant for 20 years, as
it wasn’t until 1978 that Deigan attempted another marathon—this
time with more training and preparation. It was a marathon
in New York City that stretched its 26.2 miles throughout
Manhattan’s five boroughs: Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens,
the Bronx, and Manhattan, where it finished in Central
Park at the Tavern on
the Green.
When the runners finished, one of the problems they ran
into was keeping themselves warm. The race is held in
the fall of each year, either in October or November,
and weather in New York, like in many places around the
country during these months, can be rather fickle. It
might be balmy. It might snow. With masses of people
crossing the finish line, it was taking each person an
average of 20 minutes to get to their clothes. Hypothermia
was settling in when the runners stopped running, and
more people were making it to the first aid tent than
were to their street clothes.
The Association of International Marathons and Road Races,
a nonprofit group that organizes races, met to discuss
this problem. They tested several products and settled
on the original “Space Blanket” from Metallized Products,
an early company that had taken advantage of the NASA
technology. Although fine for many situations, and ideally
suited for this use in many ways, the blankets were each
folded and packaged, a seemingly small detail that had
severe impact on their usefulness in this situation—with
hundreds of runners crossing the line every few minutes,
the blankets just took too long to dispense, unwrap,
and unfold, but they were still, at that time, the most
viable solution.
Still running, during the 1979 New York City Marathon,
Deigan crested a hill in Central Park and crossed the
finish line. What stood out to him was not that he had
made it 26.2 miles; rather, he was marveling at the silver
caterpillar of people wiggling away from the finish line.
As he recalls “I crossed the finish line and followed
the runners in front of me as we were wrapped in metallized
polyester sheets and guided onto and over a hilly path
to the reunion area.” He recalls that it looked like
a dragon from a Chinese New Year’s celebration. He had
the idea at that point that the New York Road Runners
Club, Inc., the group that organizes the New York City
Marathon, could transform the expense of the silver blankets
into racing revenue through branding.
Deigan, the former employee of National Metallizing,
also thought of a solution to the problem of having to
unwrap and unfold the blankets. The insulating material
could be shipped flat and unwrapped on a pallet, thus
eliminating the time-consumption problem.
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AFMInc
supplied the Marine Corps Marathon with 24,000
camouflage printed Heatsheets for the 2005 run |
During the first few years, the blankets were branded
with the Road Runners logo, a bright red apple; but in
1982, industry had taken notice of the advertising opportunity
and major corporations branded the marathon as well as
10 smaller races, and the idea really took hold. That
following year, the Chicago and Boston Marathons took
interest in the new product and found sponsors to brand
their races as well.
Now, most major marathons in the United States, many
in other parts of the world, and a number of smaller
races employ the blankets, mostly for the purposes of
preventing hypothermia, but also because runners have
come to expect them. They have become synonymous with
finishing a race.
The blanket printing process has, over the last few years,
gotten increasingly sophisticated. This past year, for
the Marine
Corps Marathon, in Arlington, Virginia, AFMInc
shipped 24,000 camouflaged finish line Heatsheets to
cover the runners as they finished the race. The product
has also advanced over time and is now manufactured in
a variety of ways, including on rolls and perforated
at 6-foot intervals for quick dispensing. Most notably,
though, the sport has really progressed. It has taken
on mass appeal as a sport where amateurs line up with
Olympians. In fact, it is estimated that 700,000 marathoners
cross the finish line in the United States alone each
year, in the dozens of races taking place around the
country.
In 1996, Runner’s World, a monthly publication devoted
to news of interest to joggers, ran an article on Deigan
and AFMInc’s endurance in the marathon safety culture.
Deigan received a call from a plant manager at Encompass
Group, of Addison, Texas, who had just started running
marathons and had read the article. The plant manager,
Lloyd Burnett, told Deigan about Thermo-Lite, an advanced
variation of the infrared-reflective aluminized material
that his company was manufacturing.
At the time, Thermo-Lite was being used as bed sheets
in hospital settings as passive hypothermia prevention
for pre- and post-operational patients, for staff in
scrubs who work in chilled environments, and as surgical
drapes, often including a cut-out access area, giving
surgeons access to specific areas of the body while covering
the rest. The sheets were softer and quieter than most
reflective insulating materials, as they did not have
the crinkle and rustle of metallized plastics.
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At
the Tolovana Roadhouse in Alaska, 50 miles from
the nearest road, Doug and Becky Bowers live with
their 25 sled dogs and operate their small company,
Midnight Mushing Outdoor Gear, via solar electricity. |
Burnett and Deigan saw potential for the Thermo-Lite
and Heatsheets in a line of adventure and extreme weather
gear, which AFMInc then sold through Adventure
Medical Kits, of Oakland, California. The products, emergency
bivvies and rescue blankets, made their way to Alaska
where they were purchased by Becky and Doug Bowers.
The Bowers live at the Tolovana Roadhouse in the outreaches
of Alaska, 50 miles from the nearest road and the small
town of Nenana. They grow their own vegetables, hunt,
fish, and trap. Since public utilities do not run to
their remote outpost, their power is generated by wind
mills and solar collectors. They use this power, in part,
to run a small business, Midnight
Mushing Outdoor Gear,
making the types of rugged, cold-tolerant outdoor gear
needed for their climate, where, on a nice day, temperatures
run well into the negative digits.
Most of the year, they are confined to their home, where
Doug conducts the marketing and business side of their
enterprise, while also making the buttons and pulls for
their line of parkas and anoraks out of caribou bone
and antlers, and Becky designs the garments. Each item,
including the vests, mittens, parkas, walking bags (a
type of mobile sleeping bag), and pullovers, is made
by hand, with added details that make each one unique,
but still representative of traditional Alaskan designs.
In addition to their aesthetics, though, the garments
are tested thoroughly for high performance. Becky and
Doug use everything for a full season before offering
them for sale. As might be imagined, one of the key factors
they test is an item’s insulating ability. Many contemporary
insulating fabrics are wicking, which draws the perspiration
away from the body; but after it has been wicked, the
insulating barrier is then wet. The ideal solution is
to combine the insulating material with a vapor barrier.
Unfortunately, many of the different materials traditionally
used as vapor barriers are bulky or noisy. This is where
Thermo-Lite enters the picture.
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All
of the items in the Midnight Mushing catalog are
handmade, and several contain an advanced variation
of the infrared-reflective material used by NASA
to control temperatures on spacecraft and equipment. |
On one of their trips into Nenana, Becky purchased one
of the Thermo-Lite blankets. She cut it into pieces and
sewed it into the linings of several pairs of mittens.
The mittens were put to the test in the winter of 1999,
shortly after Christmas, when Becky and Doug left Nenana
to trek the 50 miles back to their home after conducting
some routine business. Doug was leading the way on the
snowmobile with a load of gear, and Becky was following
with a team of sled dogs. The two were enjoying the unseasonably
warm weather, and the trip
was uneventful.
Two days later, the temperature started to drop, reaching
-55 °F by the time night fell and continued dropping
through the night. The thermometer in their woodshed
the next morning read -65 °F. The weather was expected
to hold at this temperature for at least a week, and
the Bowers had only enough food for their 25 sled dogs
to last another 4 days.
They determined to make the trek back, through the bitter
cold, into Nenana, so they made makeshift dog coats out
of squirrel-damaged blankets, fired up the snowmobile,
and left. The trip took 7½ hours, with temperatures nearing
-72 °F, 144 degrees below room temperature!
During that time, the starter pull rewind failed on the
snowmobile, which meant Doug had to run the engine idle
high to avoid stalling and then drive extra slowly so
as not to overheat the engine. Meanwhile, Becky’s chemical
hand warmer failed near the halfway point. She wore her
new, experimental Heat Barrier Mitts the rest of the
way, and to her surprise, and great relief, her hands
stayed warm. Ahead on the snowmobile, which is not equipped
with heated grips, Doug wore a pair of work gloves under
a pair of the mitts, and his hands, too, stayed warm.
After this event, Becky and Doug decided to add the Thermo-Lite
mittens to their Midnight Mushings product line. Becky
eventually worked her way through a line of phone calls
and got through to Deigan, then asked if she could buy
seconds of the material. After hearing her story, not
only did Deigan agree to supply Becky with factory seconds,
he took a plane up the West Coast to see the Tolovana
Roadhouse where the Bowers live.
Midnight Mushing’s resulting Heat Barrier Mitts employ
a 330-denier Supplex Cordura outer shell, a material
that owes its origin to work done by DuPont in the 1920s
to make super-strong tires for Army vehicles. It has
been refined to the point now, where it is as supple
as cotton. The mittens also have Tuff-Grip palms, which
stay flexible even in extreme cold, and, of course, the
Thermo-Lite insulation. They are very popular with the
trappers who turn the mittens inside out when perspiration
builds inside, wait a few seconds for the moisture to
freeze, give the mittens a whack to crack off the ice,
and then put them back on.
Becky has been wearing the mittens for several seasons
now, and with the money she has saved from not having
to purchase a case of chemical warmers each season, the
mittens paid for themselves within the first year. She
had had considerable tissue damage to her hands from
repeated frostbite, and wearing these mittens for the
past few years, her hands have had a chance to start
healing—a considerable boon considering that she is a
seamstress
by trade.
Midnight Mushing also incorporates the space-age Thermo-Lite
into a line of vests, which is handy not only for activities
like running the dogs in extreme cold, but for sedentary
activities, like sewing, where the body has the tendency
to lose heat.
The Bowers are not the only people who have bought this
space-age material from AFMInc; many have realized its
potential and then wanted it for their own unique use.
What is remarkable, though, is the extent to which this
space technology can be applied and that it has worked
its way into such remote locations.
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The
Emergency Sleeping Bag by Adventure Medical Kits
weighs only 2.5 ounces and reflects up to 90 percent
of a person’s body heat, making it ideal for survival
situations. |
In October 2005, an earthquake registering 7.6 on the
Richter scale caused widespread destruction in northern
Pakistan, as well as in Afghanistan and northern India.
The following day, the area felt 147 aftershocks, the
strongest of which registered 6.2. During the first 4
days after
the initial quake, 28 aftershocks occurred with a magnitude
greater than 5. Even 11 days later, there were still
major quakes.
It is estimated that over 79,000 people died, 135,000
people were injured, and 400,000 houses were destroyed—a
true natural disaster. The area was devastated, and the
aid started pouring in to assist in relief efforts.
Stateside, Richard Berger, an avid hiker, was so moved
by the plight of the people in the remote villages of
Pakistan that he literally got into his car and started
a search for products that might help relieve their suffering.
He found his way to a large REI (Recreational Equipment,
Inc.) retail store in his hometown of Seattle. REI is
a supplier of specialty outdoor gear and equipment. There,
Berger sorted through as many products as he could and
settled on the Heatsheets rescue blanket AFMInc and Adventure
Medical Kits had created. It is a larger version of the
finish line blanket. At finish lines, where tripping
hazards are a problem, the blankets measure 48 by 72
inches. These emergency blankets, though, are big enough
for two people to wrap up and share body heat. They measure
60 by 96 inches, and the retail version is printed with
a complete set of illustrated survival instructions in
two languages.
Berger, like the Bowers, worked his way from the supplier
to the distributor, to the manufacturer, and eventually
to Deigan, asking what AFMInc could do to help. With
the cooperation of a network of small companies, and
a remarkable Internet fundraising effort through friends
and acquaintances, Berger began to generate a buzz. The
efforts were successful, and the newly formed collective
received e-mails and letters from nurseries and day schools,
from various nonprofit organizations, and from individuals
willing to assist the refugees of the Pakistani earthquake.
Through this fundraising campaign, they produced approximately
150,000 60- by 90-inch Heatsheets out of a special performance
resin polyethylene with the standard infrared-reflective
coating. All of the work was done at cost, with no profit,
and they went through two production runs to produce
enough Heatsheets to reach as many people as possible.
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Mercy
Corps coordinated with individuals and institutions,
large and small, to deploy tens of thousands of
the reflective emergency blankets to Pakistan in
fall of 2005, after earthquakes devastated the
region. |
Once the campaign had grown quite sizeable, Berger contacted
Mercy Corps, of Portland, Oregon, to assist in the final,
but most critical, stage—distributing the materials.
Mercy Corps has a 25-year history of disaster relief
response around the world and had already been conducting
aid work in Pakistan for over 20 years. It was integral
to the earthquake response and the ideal group to manage
the next stages of the effort.
The group supplied both folded Heatsheets and Heatsheets-on-a-Roll
for this effort, and suggested ways to employ Heatsheets
as structural insulation and as emergency blankets. AFMInc
also donated thousands of smaller Thermo-Lite blankets
that were tremendously helpful, especially for smaller
children and the elderly. These doubled as ground covers
during the day and much-needed blankets at night.
Dan McHugh, a senior vice president at DHL International,
Ltd., assisted the group by arranging for the large shipping
firm to provide air shipments of the relief supplies
at no charge, on three separate occasions. This generosity
made it possible to nearly double the amount of Heatsheets
supplied and provided some relief to people halfway around
the world.
Both the Heatsheets and Thermo-Lite have been named Certified
Space Technologies by the Space
Foundation. The Space
Foundation, in cooperation with NASA, created the Space
Certification Program to promote the extraordinary products
and services that bring the benefits of space technology
home to Earth and enhance public interest and awareness
in space.
Heatsheets® is a registered trademark of AFMInc.
DuPont® is a registered trademark of E. I. du Pont de
Nemours and Company.
Supplex® and Cordura® are registered trademarks of INVISTA,
Inc.
Thermo-Lite® is a registered trademark of Encompass Group,
LLC.
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