NASA mattress also known as the memory foam mattress has become very popular today. It is not something unusual. Everybody needs comfort in his or her life, and the first thing comes to mind is sound sleep. Sleep helps us to maintain our health in a good condition; one of the main factors providing the good sleep is the body relaxation.

And that is what actually NASA memory foam mattress does.

The NASA mattress story comes down to the 70's, when the space programs were largely developed, so the conditions for the astronauts’' rest were the object of the research as well. The idea was to create foam that will be capable to sense the body weight as well as the body temperature. The astronauts' bodies were experiencing excess stress during space flights, which was due to the G-force. The new material was named visco-elastic polyurethane foam and was able to mould itself to a person's shape.

Actually it wasn't so nice from the very beginning. The initial version was called the T-foam. It has some good properties, but was not durable enough and cracked eventually.

So the new material offered unique qualities like above mentioned ability to conform to a person's shape. After the person is gone, the NASA memory foam mattress will gradually return to its initial shape.

This feature is provided by the foam mattress structure: it is open celled foam which allows the air freely move from cell to another; thus the mattress melts away under the body pressure, and provide full support which is evenly distributed over the surface of the memory foam. Such kind of support helps to remove pressure points and gives deep relaxation to every part of the body. Along with the mattresses you can get a memory foam topper.

We mentioned another quality of the NASA mattress - its sensitivity to body temperature. It works in such a way that when your body is lying on the mattress, the body temperature makes the memory foam mattress to soften. In a medical sense it is a great feature since those parts of the body which have some injures tend to produce more heat, which cause the NASA memory foam mattress to become even softer in those touching areas.

From all the above said words you shouldn't think that the NASA mattress is something very rare and unaffordable.

From the early 90's the memory foam mattresses became available to the public, and their commercial use began.

The first company which launched memory foam mattresses in the consumer market was Tempur-Pedic. This company is a subdivision of Fagerdala World Foams - Swedish foam manufacturer; this company bought the memory foam technology from NASA, and developed their own version of memory foam, known as Tempur foam. It is high quality memory foam mattresses designed to be more durable and efficiently reduce body pressure. Because of their high cost their primary usage is mainly for medical purposes; it enables patients to have a better sleep, and provides relief from severe backache; it helps to reduce the sores that are caused due to pressure, and improves blood circulation. We can say that this is almost the best kind of memory foam mattress available today.

There are many other companies who adopted the technology and started to make NASA memory foam mattresses. They usually offer cheaper versions of foam mattresses, but the quality may differ as well. Beware of false advertising and cheap imitations. To make sure that you are buying an authentic mattress, you need to know the features it possesses. There are different ways you can get this information but one of the best is simply to go online - it is definitely the easiest, affordable and rather quick method.

NASA Memory Foam Mattress - How To Determine The Good And The Bad One

The difference between good and bad memory foam mattress lies in its density. The best choice is a density of 5.3 lbs. to 5.9 lbs - it is that the human body is best supported by. More density won't allow the proper cell collapsing, and less density will make you feel lack of support in the hip and shoulder areas. Also less density foam mattresses won't continue to return to their original shape for long; after a relatively short period of time they may lose their comfort.

How to know the memory foam mattress density? Simple!

Imagine that you cut a big "dice" out of memory foam 12"x12"x12", then put it onto the scales. By the weight of the 12" sized cube you will estimate density. Just for instance, if your "dice" weighed 5.9 lbs., the density will be 5.9; with the weight of 3.5 it will have a density of 3.5. That's easy!

We have to mention overall advantages and disadvantages of the NASA memory foam mattresses.

The main advantage is that about 80% of the memory foam mattress owners considered them very comfortable. It is peoples' opinion and it really counts.

The major disadvantage is an off gassing effect which is a giving off of a chemical-like smell; that may continue for the first few hours, weeks or months, depending of the quality of the mattress. Some expensive memory foam mattresses like those of Tempurpedic, have fewer instances of such unpleasant problems.

Also sometimes it is difficult for people to get used to the visco elastic material, but usually it is gone within one or two weeks, and they start enjoying the comfort of the NASA mattress.