Visco Memory Foam MattressPosted by Nick Niesen on November 1st, 2010 A visco memory foam mattress gets it's name from the visco-elastic material developed for NASA in the early 1970's in conjunction with the space program. The astronauts in the space program were facing incredible g-forces, at take-off and re-entry, and the materials that were available, at that time, weren't sufficient to cushion their bodies. Visco memory foam was developed from foam that had some unique characteristics, such as being open celled and able to return to their original shape and resiliency after being compressed. Both illustrations are meant to show you the slow recovery of visco memory foam. Because the billions of cells, in a visco memory foam mattress, are open, air can slowly escape from them and pass into other cells that are adjacent. That's what has been termed by some as feeling like you're floating in space. (Even though I love my mattress, I've never felt like that was a good explanation of how it feels) A visco memory foam mattress is temperature sensitive, so it reacts to your body temperature by softening where your body is in contact with the mattress. If you have an injury, with a fever, the mattress is softer under that place on your body. In the beginning developments of this material, it was too expensive to be used for residential consumer mattresses and pillows. Over time, the manufacturing costs have been whittled to a point that a good memory foam mattress is as reasonably priced as a good innerspring mattress and there is no comparison in the comfort of the two. Memory foam is now being combined with other materials to meet the needs of the vast multitude of consumers who are looking for: Schedule some time to do some memory foam mattress pricing comparisons and you'll see that you can, affordably, be sleeping on a mattress that is great for your body, health and your budget. Like it? Share it!More by this author |