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  • Top 10 Amazing Space Technologies That Could Soon

  • Be Real

  • 10. Artificial Gravity

  • A zero gravity environment isn’t the most comfortable or practical way for astronauts

  • to live and work. Everyday things like showering or brushing your teeth become much more difficult,

  • not to mention the motion sickness and from bone and muscle deterioration. In science

  • fiction movies, they often have artificial gravity that keeps them on the floor. Why

  • can’t we just do that?

  • What’s interesting is that engineers know how to create artificial gravity on a space

  • station, and that’s through centripetal force. They just need to spin the aircraft

  • or space station and people would be able to walk on the walls, similar to the scene

  • in 2001: A Space Odyssey where Jack is running around on the walls of the space station.

  • So while they know how to create it, they haven’t because it doesn’t work well on

  • smaller space stations. It would work well on bigger space stations because the bigger

  • the wheel, the less it needs to rotate. With smaller space stations, there couldn’t be

  • any windows because the rotation speed would disorient the astronauts, and potentially

  • make them dizzy enough to pass out.

  • If we were to build a bigger space station that had a circumference larger than a football

  • field, artificial gravity from centripetal force would be feasible. While there are no

  • immediate plans to build a space station of this size, there are a few design plans that

  • could make the concept work.

  • 9. Free Flying Robot

  • When humans are in space, it’s an arduous process for them to venture outside the space

  • craft. This makes things as simple as inspections a long and tedious process that can also be

  • quite dangerous.

  • One solution to that problem is to develop free flying robots. One project that’s a

  • step toward that goal is NASA’s Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera (AERCam), a

  • free-floating camera that would check the outside of the International Space Station,

  • including areas that humans have problems accessing. It would be able to take off, fly,

  • and land by itself. It would also be able to avoid debris and other obstacles in space.

  • It’s important to note that this is just one of the early steps in free flying robots.

  • Later developments will have the robots do maintenance and repairs.

  • 8. Suitport

  • Entering and exiting a sealed area in space is a pretty tedious. If the astronauts are

  • going on a spacewalk, they step inside the airlock, wait for the door behind them to

  • close, lock the door behind them, and then open the door to the outside. When coming

  • back on the ship, they have to do the same procedure, but this time they have to wait

  • for the airlock to depressurize before entering the vessel. The problem is that airlocks themselves

  • can be dangerous, and sitting in spacesuits can lead to injuries. Simply put, airlocks

  • are not the most ideal way to enter and exit a spacecraft.

  • A suitport, on the other hand, would be a pressurized vehicle that would have suits

  • on the outside, and the astronauts would climb in through the back of the suit. This rover

  • would be much less expensive and smaller than a traditional airlock because it would cut

  • down on decompression. This means it wouldn’t use as many resources, and would help cut

  • down on decompression sickness. It would also limit suit-induced trauma, because people

  • wouldn’t have to spend as much time in the spacesuit.

  • 7. The Magdrive Project

  • Let’s say some space agency, like NASA or the European Space Agency, was developing

  • a rover to roam the surface of Mars. Millions, if not billions of dollars would be spent

  • developing the rover over a number of years, and once the construction was complete it’d

  • be sent on a months long journey. Once they get into Marsorbit, they have to land

  • the transport pod successfully. Now imagine if the rover rolled out and a few feet from

  • the transportation pod it stopped moving because one little disturbance during the trip caused

  • one little gear to be knocked out of place. This scenario is quite possible, and it would

  • be a complete and utter nightmare for those involved. The cost, not to mention thousands

  • of man-hours and years of development, would be blown in a matter of minutes.

  • An invention that could help solve this problem is the Magdrive Project. The Magdrive doesn’t

  • use traditional interlocking gears, instead utilizing magnets with the same poles so that

  • the bearings would push against each other. This would make the moving parts frictionless

  • and eliminate problems that could arise in gears, like wear and tear, or in the lubrication.

  • If the tests work, it could revolutionize the space industry because it could be used

  • in many aspects of mechanical tools like wheels and arms.

  • 6. Laser Communications

  • One of the most important aspects of space travel is communication. This is especially

  • true if the astronauts are going on a one-way trip, when a line of communication is the

  • only way to tell if the mission was successful or not. The problem with current radio transmitters

  • is that they require a lot of power to send transmissions back to Earth.

  • During long space trips, energy is at a premium and if the spacecraft could use the energy

  • for something other than radio transmissions, that would be incredibly helpful because there

  • are no service stations in space. Once a ship leaves Earth, that’s it. One solution to

  • that is to use lasers that would transmit back to Earth, enabling astronauts to send

  • data and videos at a rate 10 to 100 times faster than radio transmission. The first

  • prototype is expected to be used in 2017.

  • 5. Robonauts

  • To state the obvious, humans aren’t naturally built for life in space. That’s why NASA,

  • along with General Motors, has begun building dexterous, humanoid robots called Robonauts.

  • The current phase of the Robonaut allows the robot to be attached to a rover, and it comes

  • complete withspace legs” (we assume the kung fu grip is coming soon). There’s

  • already a Robonaut aboard the International Space Station and begun doing limited work

  • alongside the actual human astronauts. The problem that the engineers are having in the

  • development of these robots is that its dexterity needs to be as good or better than a gloved

  • human astronaut, and the technology just isn’t that sophisticated yet.

  • For fans of the movie Interstellar that were hoping for TARS or CASE-like robots, were

  • sorry to say it but youre out of luck, as these Robonauts don’t share many similarities.

  • Experts say that the robots should be more dexterous and have a “squishyexterior.

  • 4. CleanSpace One

  • There are 55,000 objects floating around in space, including thousands of manmade objects

  • and debris like satellites, which could make for a dangerous situation for people on Earth

  • and in orbit. For example, some of the space debris could crash into Earth, destroying

  • property or even causing human casualties. In space, these objects can reach speeds of

  • 17,500 miles per hour, meaning that just a tiny object could rip through something like

  • the International Space Station. Of course, if you saw the movie Gravity you probably

  • already knew that.

  • In an effort to clean up space, the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology developed

  • the CleanSpace One, which will be a custodian in outer space. It’s been used twice to

  • take down two Swiss satellites, and in the future they’d like to have an entire fleet

  • to keep the atmosphere clean. The CleanSpace One is small box with a claw used to grab

  • the object, and then tow it down to Earth in a controlled descent. The major complication

  • is that catching the object at the exact right trajectory is tricky. If that’s not done

  • properly, the object could break into even more pieces, or even break the CleanSpace

  • One itself, turning the janitor into the garbage.

  • 3. Deflector Shields

  • One of the dangers of space travel is the heavy amount of radiation. A trip to Mars

  • would expose an astronaut to 100 times more radiation than on Earth over the span of a

  • year. The problem is that in order to make proper shields for the radiation, they need

  • to be several meters thick, making them far too heavy to install on a spacecraft.

  • A solution to stopping radiation while keeping the spacecraft light enough comes from the

  • Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom, which is working on what they call

  • a mini magnetosphere. Or, in terms you’d understand from science fiction movies, a

  • deflector shield. The mini magnetosphere would make an environment that mimics the Earth’s

  • magnetic field around the ship, protecting astronauts from radiation.

  • The plan is to put a magnetic field around the spacecraft in flowing plasma, with the

  • electrons following the new magnetic field and creating a constant electric field that

  • would refract or deflect enough of the radiation to protect the people aboard the spacecraft.

  • 2. Synthetic Biology

  • It goes without saying that food, water, and oxygen are not easy to come by in space. That

  • gets to be a problem when planning an extended expedition into deep space, especially since

  • for every one pound of cargo, they need 99 pounds of fuel to ship it.

  • A solution to this problem comes from Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division. Using

  • synthetic biological processes, astronauts could use minerals and gases from the alien

  • atmosphere, along with alien soil and human waste, and make their own food, medicine,

  • fuel, and other materials needed to survive. This has near limitless possibilities. For

  • example, food could be created using a bacterium called spirulina (yummy!) and a microbe called

  • Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum can be used to produce methane and oxygen. These

  • synthetic processes would cut down on fuel, making long term space travel and colonization

  • much more feasible.

  • 1. Space Elevator

  • Well save you the suspense here, a space elevator is exactly what it sounds like. The

  • idea was first thought of in 1895, but not much progress has been made on such an ambitious

  • (and, let’s be honest, a little absurd) project. Then, in 2012, a Japanese construction

  • company called the Obayashi Corporation announced that they will have a space elevator constructed

  • and in use by 2050.

  • The space elevator would have a space station on the top and reach a height of 59,652 miles

  • into orbit. For some perspective, the elevator would reach higher than the International

  • Space Station, which is about 205 miles above the Earth. If youre curious: no, it wouldn’t

  • come close to the moon, which is about 238,855 miles away.

  • The Space Elevator would use cars that utilize maglev, which are magnetic linear motors used

  • in high-speed trains. The biggest benefit to constructing the elevator would be the

  • money saved in shipping cargo into space. Currently it costs $22,000 per kilogram via

  • shuttle, but using the elevator that cost would drop closer to $200.

Top 10 Amazing Space Technologies That Could Soon

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十大驚天動地的航天技術,很快就會成為現實 - TopTenzNet (Top 10 Amazing Space Technologies That Could Soon Be Real — TopTenzNet)

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    richardwang 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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