From engines that use no fuel to an actual city in the clouds, here are 5 unbelievably cool projects NASA is working on.
- Em Drive
This drive works by bouncing microwaves around in an enclosed chamber, somehow affecting quantum fluctuations in the space around the chamber, which produces thrust.
Without any kind of actual force being exerted behind the engine. As one of the NASA researchers said it’s a lot like moving your car forward by pushing on the steering wheel.
It’s minuscule thrust, at the subatomic level, but it’s constant acceleration, which adds up exponentially, meaning over time it could reach incredibly fast speeds.
A few months ago a team of researchers tested the theory and were able to record between 30 and 55 micronewtons, which is incredibly small, but still measurable.
- Cloud City
What most people don’t know about Venus is that its air pressure is way higher than ours is.
It sounds impossible, but standing on the surface of Venus would be the same as swimming one kilometer below the surface of the ocean. It would crush you like a soda can.
And at such high pressures, a lightweight craft pressured to an Earth atmosphere would float in the upper atmosphere and never get close to the ground. It would just bob around like a cork on the surface of water.
Dirigibles, zepplins, blimps, all kinds of lighter-than air ships could be connected, forming entire colonies amongst the venetian clouds.
- Europa Drill
In the search for life beyond Earth, one of the most promising places is Europa, a moon around Jupiter.
It’s almost entirely covered with ice, but underneath the ice is expected to be warm liquid ocean, containing more water than we have here on Earth.
Warm liquid water worked pretty well here on Earth, so they think there may be a chance for some kind of life on Europa. But how do we get to it with all that ice?
NASA is developing a robotic drill that would punch a hole in the ice, and then dive below and explore the water with movements based on that of a squid. It would be the first underwater planetary rover.
- Osiris-Rex
Osiris Rex’s mission is to land on the asteroid Bennu, collect samples from underneath the surface of the asteroid and return it home so scientists can study it with their own hands.
The mission would give us a first-hand look at the building blocks of our solar system as well as give us a better idea of how to potentially destroy the asteroid.
Which is a good thing to know since Bennu has a relatively high probability of smashing into the Earth in the late 22nd century.
- James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2018, has been called the Great Pyramid of our generation, and for good reason.
Its mirrors measure 21 feet across, compared to Hubble’s 8 foot mirror, and can collect 7 times more light than Hubble.
Through its giant mirror and its focus on infrared light, The James Webb Space Telescope is expected to see as far back as a hundred million years or so after the big bang. Meaning we’ll be able to see the formation of the very first galaxies in the universe.
This will give us a better understanding of the rapid expansion and cooling that took place at the formation of the universe, which gives us a better understanding of the forces that guide our universe.