You may have heard that freeze-dried food was invented to feed astronauts on the Apollo missions, and although “astronaut ice cream” was never actually used during the operations, it was developed for NASA in the 1960s. Two other items people commonly believe originated with Apollo 11 are Tang and Teflon, but this is apocryphal — NASA isn’t responsible for your non-stick pans or your fruit drink mix. Nonetheless, there are plenty of things you use every day that have roots in the Apollo program. From emergency blankets to forward-thinking sneaker technology, here are some of the more infamous pieces of tech to have come out of the moon landing.
Firefighting Protection Gear: Fire is a tremendous danger to space missions, as they often involve pressurized environments with high levels of oxygen. The two components helped fuel a fire in the cabin of Apollo 1 during a launch test in 1967, killing three crew members. To prevent this kind of accident from happening again, NASA developed special materials for the protection of both astronauts and their ships.