^* If it’s cordless, fireproof, lightweight and strong, miniaturized, or automated, chances are good NASA has had a hand in the technology. We are talking trash compactors, bulletproof vests, high-speed wireless data transfer, implantable heart monitors, cordless power tools, artificial limbs, dustbusters, sports bras, solar panels, invisible braces, computerized insulin pumps, fire-fighters’ masks. Every now and then, earthbound applications head off in an unexpected direction: Digital lunar image analyzers allow Estée Lauder to quantify “subtleties otherwise undetectable” in the skin of women using their products, providing a basis for ludicrous wrinkle-erasing claims. Miniature electronic Apollo heat pumps spawned the Robotic Sow. “At feeding time a heat lamp simulating a sow’s body warmth is automatically turned on, and the machine emits rhythmic grunts like a mother pig summoning her piglets. As piglets scamper to their mechanical mother, a panel across the front opens to expose the row of nipples,” wrote an unnamed NASAfacts scribe, surely eliciting grunts from superiors in the NASA Public Affairs Office.