Four space age technologies that already exist (kinda).

Yes, I know. You are all heartbroken because I haven’t posted an article in a while – unfortunately real life gets in the way of the internet. How awesome would it be to live as some sort of digital being floating amongst all the racism and cat pictures like some kind of electronic ghost of internet present?  Sneaking up on people and going “Well well well, what have we here?” when they open a private browsing window?

… anyway, moving on.

This week we bring you some space age technology that (kind of) already exists (a little). I’ll be honest with you, it’s not going to be my best work but I am working on a new article as you read this and it’s going to be a tour-de-force of whimsy and wonderment (It’s really not). As always, any complaints can be addressed to 123 Fake Street. As for the town? Just write down the town you live in and I’m sure it will find its way to me *snigger*.

Okay, let’s do this *cracks knuckles*

*Note: you will notice that, with the exception of the first image, my captions are somewhat lazy - this isn't a lack of creativity, but a fantastic new feature Google have added to their blogging service that makes captions of more than a few words take up several lines of the whole page - thanks Google! Making things easier through innovation!* 

A see-through phone 

 

I don’t know about you, but when I picture the future I see all computer technology being small, sleek, pretty and see-through, if not holographic or built into the brain in some sort of freaky melding of man and machine. If you go into any phone shop today you will notice that more and more advanced technology is being crammed into smartphones no bigger than a few square inches – so we are well on our way to downsizing the helpful technology we use every day.

Its a carrot! Not really, it's a see-through 
phone. (Source: Polytron)

As for the see-through part, a Taiwan-based company called Polytron has recently unveiled a prototype of the hardware of a transparent handset. The phone contains all the hardware you would expect from a modern handset: an expansion card slot, a battery, speakers and a microphone. Unfortunately the handset is currently unable to run an operating system such as Android or Windows 8 and is just a hardware prototype which is only currently capable of playing music. 

Polytron currently specialises in privacy glass – another neat item of technology which works by altering the alignment of crystals within the glass to alter the amount of light that gets though. When a current is applied to the glass it is clear and when there is no current the crystals align in such a way that lets less light though, making the glass appear cloudy. It is thought that this might be how the phone could display data.

Advanced humanoid robots

 

ASIMO (Source: Vanillase)

Walking, talking and thinking robotic pals are probably a big part of most people’s vision of the future and are a staple of science fiction’s vision of the future from HAL (crazy) to C3PO (annoying and technically from the past, somehow).  It turns out that there are several amazingly advanced robots in existence today that you might not know about.

Most people will have heard of ASIMO, first introduced by Honda in 2000. ASIMO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative MObility and the robot was designed (through 20+ years of research) to be able to walk with agility and interact with people and its environment and to improve the quality of life of humans. ASIMO can do several impressive things besides being able to run, walk, dance, climb, kick and conduct an orchestra: the 2011 model of ASIMO can work cooperatively with other ASIMO units, step aside when approached and return to its charger when it senses its batter levels are running low. 

ATLAS (Source: DARPA)

Unfortunately Honda doesn’t currently have any plans to market ASIMO. An interesting fact about ASIMO: his designers were so shocked by his lifelike movement that they travelled to Vatican City to ask whether it was cool with the man upstairs to make a robot that can walk like a person – luckily for ASIMO they gave the go ahead.

The most recent addition to the world of bipedal robots is Atlas – an adult-sized robot designed and produced by a US robotics company called Boston Dynamics contracted by the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Atlas is perhaps less impressive than ASIMO as it is human controlled, but makes up for it with some other feats. Much like a coked-up gorilla made out of lead, Atlas is hard to knock down. It has been shown walking over rough terrain with perfect balance and balancing on one leg whilst being struck repeatedly with a large weight. Thankfully DARPA is not developing Atlas for combat applications, but to assist with search and rescue in hazardous environments.

Ion thrusters

 

It genuinely surprised me that this exists. If you remember last month’s article about interstellar travel, I talked about methods of jet propulsion to carry space crafts between stars alternative to current technologies. One such alternative method to generating thrust for space craft are ion thrusters, some examples of which already exist and have been used on the Deep Space 1 and Dawn space crafts. For some years NASA have been working on NEXT – the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – which aims to be three times more powerful than the NSTAR ion thruster used on Dawn and Deep Space 1.

The NEXT thruster: look at it shine! (Source: NASA)

In order to explain how NEXT (or any other ion thruster) functions, we have to talk about ionisation. That’s right folks – its chemistry time! (and after all, it is all about chemistry).  In their normal state, atoms exist without an overall charge – the negative charge of the electrons and the positive charge of the nucleus kind of cancel each other out (for a more detailed explanation of atomic structure, have a look at my previous article or this article at Howstuffworks.com). 

I will say first of all that I am over-simplifying this for the sake of making this article more interesting and easy to read and any sciency types going “HURURURUR  ACTUALLY, I THINK YOU WILL FIND…” will be summarily ignored. When an atom gains or loses an electron, the ‘balance’ between the negative charge of the electrons and positive charge of the nucleus is upset and the atom gains a positive or negative charge depending on what is lost or gained, becoming an ion. The reason why this happens involves the differing energy levels electrons occupy around the nucleus - I’m not going into detail because it isn’t really relevant here, but if you want to know more you can check out this excellent page on the subject.

In an ion thruster, a neutral xenon atom is released into a magnetic field along with a free electron. The atom and electron collide to produce a positive xenon ion which is accelerated through the magnetic field, propelling the craft forwards.

The NEXT thruster has recently set a record for remaining active for 5.5 years without any loss of function. The longevity and extreme fuel efficiency of this thruster gives hope for the success of more ambitious deep space missions in the future. 

Universal constructor/Cornucopia machine 

A 3D printer! (Photo by Bart Dring)

Okay, I will admit that this one is a stretch - but can't a nerd dream? You might have guessed from my previous articles (and this one) that I have no life am something of a fan of Sci-Fi. My favourite video game (and one of my favourite things too) is the 2001 masterpiece Deus Ex – and many people agree with me on this one. One of the fictional technologies featured in the game is a universal constructor, or UC. This is an example of a theorised device known as a molecular assembler – this is pretty much a machine that can construct anything by arranging atoms at the molecular level (in the case of Deus Ex this was achieved by using nanobots – nanoscopic robots).

You are probably thinking that no such thing exists – you would have heard of it. And you’d be correct.  The closest thing we have at the moment is a 3D printer. Again, I know it’s a bit of a stretch – but it is a step in the right direction. A 3D printer is an amazing device which takes a digital 3D model and constructs the object in the physical world by laying down thin layers of a material and building up a physical reconstruction of the 3D model. When you think about this for a minute, its pretty amazing – its kinda like having a magic crayon which you can draw something with and have it appear next to you (yes, I do write science articles). 

At the moment 3D printers can make things out of a wide variety of materials including metal alloys, plaster and ceramics. 3D printers are commercially available and it is possible to buy one for personal use, the cheapest ones being around £1000 (about $1600 USD) – you could buy something which you could use to make many of the simple everyday objects you might need.

Again, this is still quite far off from a machine that can make anything, but it is still amazing – and who knows? One day this technology could develop into a machine which could make literally anything and solve world hunger. So keep an eye on it.

That about rounds this one up (I know, only four items – you must feel cheated). Stay tuned for more sciencey goodness next week. In the meantime, check out the Facebook page from the link at the top of the page. 

As with every article I post here, this one has been thoroughly researched and a list of sources can be provided for anyone who is curious – just check out the contact page