Black & Decker DustBuster

Mark Proett and Carroll Gantz are listed as the inventors on the utility and design patents, respectively, assigned to Black & Decker for a cordless vacuum cleaner.

The design originated from the Apollo space mission, where NASA required a portable, self-contained drill capable of extracting core samples from the lunar surface.

However, in post-mortem consumer research, the Spot Vac was highly successful with women, who borrowed it from their husband's workbench in the basement to clean up minor spills in the kitchen and upstairs.

[4][5] Over a million Dustbusters were sold in its first year, four times that of the traditional handheld vacuum market and its success enabled B&D to establish a new Household Products Division, which in 1983, acquired and merged with General Electric Housewares Operations in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

[7] The 1990–1996 General Motors minivans (the Chevrolet Lumina APV, Pontiac Trans Sport and Oldsmobile Silhouette) had styling that were frequently likened to the DustBusters.