By Meghan Bartels
NASA engineer (click here) Mike Buttigieg works on the Aerospace Valley Positive Pressure Helmet, a device that was successfully tested by doctors at Antelope Valley Hospital in California....
Bridenstein had brought with him three examples of technology (click here) that agency employees have been developing in the six weeks or so since the pandemic entered the U.S. in earnest and the four weeks since the agency launched the NASA @ WORK program to crowdsource its pandemic response activities.
Typically, engineers at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in California work on technologies related to aircraft; lately, some have instead developed an oxygen hood in partnership with commercial suborbital spaceflight company Virgin Galactic. The new device provides the oxygen pressure COVID-19 patients require while protecting healthcare workers from infection, Bridenstine said.
Another technology on display builds on NASA's dedication to spacecraft sterilization and planetary protection, preventing contamination of other worlds. "We took that technology to sterilize a spacecraft and we said how do we use that to sterilize the inside of a room, and that's what this device is," Bridenstine said. "It will fog the room and every surface in the room will then be sterilized. No coronavirus."...
