Since the fiber reinforced polymeric (FRP) composites are considered in next generation of space transportation systems, reliable thermal expansion properties should be well provided for structural design of composite materials. To obtain accurate mechanical behaviors at a cryogenic temperature, precise strain measurement and calibration must be provided. In this work, apparent strains (or thermal output) of temperature self-compensated strain gages were deliberately investigated for epoxy, CTBN modified epoxy and carbon fabric composite system from room temperature to liquid nitrogen temperature. Also, fourth-order thermal output curves were presented for the further calibration. The results showed that the thermal output is heavily dependent on test materials and a large amount of apparent strains were observed for the polymer resins.