SCOPE’s scientist and comedy stars - Dr Aidan Rocks and his assistant Pascal - venture into space. They take a look at a few of the household items that were invented by scientists working on space programmes.

Did you know?

• Portable self-contained power tools were originally developed to help Apollo astronauts drill for moon samples.
• Joysticks were invented to steer NASA’s moon landing vehicles.
• Household smoke detectors were first used in orbiting space stations to detect toxic vapours
• Bar codes, which we can see on virtually everything we buy today, were originally developed by NASA in the 1970s, to keep track of millions of spacecraft parts.

So do the household objects survive careful handling by our scientist and his trusty assistant?

Learn more:

Look up famous inventions

Check out the history of inventions like the wheel and toothpaste

Visit NASA’s inventions office on the Web