It's not 'Star Trek,' but NASA wants a 'tractor beam'
The Death Star in "Star Wars" reeled in space ships with "tractor beams." So did Captain Kirk's USS Enterprise on "Star Trek."
Now NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, aims to develop a real tractor beam, but on a much smaller scale.
We're not about to start yanking our cars out of ditches with beams of light rather than tow trucks, but there's certainly some promising technology there. One of the really interesting things about science fiction is watching the stuff that we used to consider "science fiction" become actual science. In my pocket right now is a cell phone that can call anywhere in the world, access the internet, play music, and keep track of my various appointments and such. And it's a quarter the size of the communicator in the original Star Trek.
I just want to know when energy-based weapons are going to be available, because I want me a lightsaber bayonet something fierce...
That is all.
5 comments:
I'm not sure about your iPhones, but I'm still disappointed that my Droid doesn't scan for temporal fluctuations...
bluesun: Your wireless carrier probably disabled that feature.
I agree with Jay, energy weapons are more practical. With a good laser you don't need a tractor beam, because there's no way an enemy ship is going to outrun photons.
Dave H: Watch Star Trek and Star Wars carefully. Apparently photons travel slower than bullets in the future.
No wonder everything can go FTL.
Well, I mean...they're called Photon Torpedoes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're actually made of photons. They can just be called that because they look like balls of light when fired.
Also, good luck having lightsabers, that totally falls into the realm of "hard light"...
Way back when Lucas was making Greedo shoot first a physicist determined that a lightsaber was totally doable.
It's an epic plasma torch, see...
Melt your arm off to hold the handle, and the Nimitz makes just enough power to run it in a week.
But it was possible! Think of what else could be done if you could build a shield that protects you from the heat of the blade to use it like a sword and put an aircraft carrier's power plant into something the size of a flashlight.
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