BROADCASTS.com

b'

NASA earlier this year launched an initiative to partner with private companies to try out their products in orbit, and automotive, consumer goods and even entertainment enterprises lined up to send their goods to the International Space Station.

A supply ship launched over the weekend, for example, included components from Lamborghini\\u2019s sports cars and a small, zero-gravity test oven among its cargo. This week, footwear and apparel giant Adidas announced that it, too, would partner with the ISS to try out its product development absent the usual limits of Earth\\u2019s gravity.

The company will send pellets of its proprietary expanded thermoplastic polyurethane \\u2014 known as Boost \\u2014 to the ISS as part of a launch reportedly set for sometime next year.

Once safely in orbit, astronauts will fill a mold of a shoe midsole with the material to examine \\u2014 with a high-speed camera \\u2014 how the pellets move and interact in space. The company says learning about how the pellets move with much less interference from gravity could help engineers optimize its shoes back on the ground.

And one day, who knows? The launch could be a precursor to manufacturing shoes \\u2014 among many, many other items \\u2014 high above the Earth\\u2019s surface.

Download and listen to the audio version below and click here to subscribe to the Today in Manufacturing podcast.