Space Technology for Safer Buildings
By IBI Insights
Date
May 13, 2016
NASA scientists aimed to create more stable spaceships, but inadvertently found a way to make buildings safer during earthquakes. In an example of the hummingbird effect, interstellar innovation presents an opportunity to change the way buildings are “earthquake proofed”. While working on stabilizing technology for violently shaking spaceships, the NASA team focused on the heaviest part of the ship: its fuel. With success in this approach, the team realized that if they could stabilize a spaceship with liquid, the same approach could work for buildings. This enables a considerably faster counterbalance measure, compared with the heavy object counter-balance system used in many buildings today. This has particular promise for cities on North America’s west coast as they prepare for the “really big one“. More broadly, the innovation underlines the potential to apply existing technology to new fields and the value of cross-sector cooperation. Urban innovation has many sources, space exploration included.
