NASA wrote:Tractor beams -- the ability to trap and move objects using laser light -- are the stuff of science fiction, but a team of NASA scientists has won funding to study the concept for remotely capturing planetary or atmospheric particles and delivering them to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft for analysis.
The NASA Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) has awarded Principal Investigator Paul Stysley and team members Demetrios Poulios and Barry Coyle at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., $100,000 to study three experimental methods for corralling particles and transporting them via laser light to an instrument -- akin to a vacuum using suction to collect and transport dirt to a canister or bag. Once delivered, an instrument would then characterize their composition.
I can see it working within the athmosphere though? Use the lasers to create a small localised low-pressure system between the particle and yourself? Or does that kill the laws of physics?
MOOD - Thirsty
A surprising amount of modern pseudoscience is coming out of the environmental sector. Perhaps it should not be so surprising given that environmentalism is political rather than scientific.
Timothy Casey
On a molecular scale, sure as per Prime's link. Objects we can see with our eyes, I bet that the intensity / energy level of the beam would damage the object first, and possibly repel it.
On a molecular scale, sure as per Prime's link. Objects we can see with our eyes, I bet that the intensity / energy level of the beam would damage the object first, and possibly repel it.
Failure is imminent.
You are today's version of yesteryear's people that burned people at the stake for stating that the earth revolves around the sun. Ok, maybe not that harsh, but on a sliding scale you definitely veer in that direction.
The scientists involved would have had to made at the very least a moderately compelling case to get funding approved.
Compelling case my anus, rather spend the money on researching cures for diseases, more efficient food production etc. Stuff that will benefit humanity, not fictional tech of 80's movies.
$100k is really not that much money to spend on this though?
I think it is cool and the basic concepts of two of the options have already been demonstrated, so not sure why your pessimism is reasonable. I especially like the optical solenoid beams approach. It is not intended to move around large objects, but it could still be an invaluable tool for a variety of applications, like moving around viruses for biomedical research.
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Hman wrote:No, it's more a case of reasonable pessimism.
Compelling case my anus, rather spend the money on researching cures for diseases, more efficient food production etc. Stuff that will benefit humanity, not fictional tech of 80's movies.
Maybe this is just me, but the last thing we need is more humans on this planet as a result of increased food production and improved medical care. There are billions of us too many.
You don't think that cutting-edge science and tech. research has fabulous long-term benefits?
"Humankind cannot bear very much reality." T.S. Elliot
How about they research building self-aware machines to fight wars on our behalf? Then we sit back and relax while they take over the world and start killing us all... oh, wait.....
Tractor beams on full! First steps towards light-based tractor beams
By Kyle Niemeyer | Published about 10 hours ago
The tubes of the Internet saw some extra traffic recently when NASA announced funding for a team of researchers to study tractor beams. That’s right, tractor beams, as in Star Trek and Star Wars (and countless other science fiction settings). The goal here isn’t to grab spacecraft (at least, not at first); instead, NASA wants to use the technology to collect particle samples for analysis on rovers and spacecraft.
This may sound like science fiction, but a few days after this announcement, a pair of papers appeared in Physical Review Letters, discussing the theory behind two approaches the NASA team plans to study (the papers' authors appear to be unaffiliated with that team).
In general, shining light on something will cause it to move away from you as the photons are either absorbed or scattered—the conservation of momentum requires that the lost momentum is compensated by the object gaining some momentum in the photon's original direction of movement. This is great if you want to push objects away, but how do you pull them toward you? By manipulating the light beams in different ways, you can force photons to scatter off the object in a way that causes motion in the opposite direction. The two papers present different methods of doing just this.
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Carry on reading for more information...
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$100k is really not that much money to spend on this though?
