NASA experts have approved a list of 22 "crazy" space exploration projects, the authors of which create techniques for "colonizing" the soil of Mars, create a laser, thermonuclear and inertial engine for starships and a tracked Mars rover to conquer Venus, the agency's website reports.
“This year's NIAC competition and all the candidates who entered it were great. We look forward to how each of these projects will transform and expand the way we explore the Universe,”said Jason Derleth, NIAC Program Manager at NASA.
Every few years, NASA holds the NIAC innovation competition, in which the agency's specialists collect and implement the most daring, bizarre and promising ideas for studying near and deep space, as well as the surface of the planets of the solar system. NIAC targets young scientists - within its framework, NASA annually selects about seven to ten extremely risky and promising space projects invented by small scientific teams, and provides resources and funds for their implementation.
For example, in 2015, JPL scientists proposed to create a hitchhiker probe flying around the solar system on top of asteroids, and in 2013 another team of scientists created a Venusian sailboat project that would move along Venus under the influence of its winds …
This year, among the winners of the competition were not only newcomers who have just joined the NIAC program, but also a dozen projects already approved by NASA that have achieved significant success in their implementation. The former received grants in the amount of USD 125 thousand, and the latter received grants in the amount of USD 500 thousand.
Beyond infinity
Newcomers this year, NASA notes, have been particularly ambitious and unusual, even for projects that usually land at NIAC. The "newcomers" suggested several projects of starships, probes capable of jumping "forever" on the surface of planets with low gravity, and much more.
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For example, the discovery of earth-like planets outside the solar system and the disclosure of the past of Mars make more and more scientists think about the possibility of colonizing other worlds.
Adam Arkin of the University of California at Berkeley and his team are proposing to create a special bacterium that will transform the soil of Mars, saturated with perchlorates and other toxic substances, into soil suitable for planting. To solve this problem, Erkin's team plans to study the genomes of the two most tenacious strains of the microbe Pseudomonas stutzeri, capable of "eating" perchlorates and saturating the soil with nitrogen compounds, and adapting them to life on Mars.
Team John Brophy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is proposing a sailing starship powered by an ion engine and a giant "sail" solar battery powered by a laser on or in Earth's orbit. Such a design, as shown by preliminary calculations of scientists, will reach Pluto in four years and fly to the supposed orbit of the "X" in 12 years.
For its operation, due to the presence of an ion engine in the sail itself, a laser with a power of only 100 megawatts is required, and not 100 gigawatts, as for a simple laser "sailboat", which will reduce the cost of launching the ship and building the emitter.
Heidi Fearn of the Institute for Space Research in Mojave (USA) offers an even more radical option for creating a starship that works on an unusual (and so far controversial) property of space-time, which was discovered in 1896 by the famous German physicist Ernst Mach.
He suggested that all properties of physical bodies depend not only on themselves and their immediate environment, but also on their location relative to all other objects in the Universe. This property, as the American physicist James Woodward showed in 1990, can in theory be used to accelerate a spacecraft without consuming fuel, attracting and repelling charged objects at certain periods of time.
Starship on the “ inertial ” engine, drawing by the author of the idea. Photo: Heidi Fearn
Since Mach's hypothesis and Woodward's calculations contradict the theory of relativity, most physicists are negative about the idea of using this effect to create an engine. Nonetheless, NASA has approved the project of Farn and her colleagues, since in recent years there has been ample evidence that such exotic systems, such as the "Mach engine" or EmDrive, can actually work.
If these ideas pass, Farn's team will first test the Mach engine on Earth satellites and then use it to fly to Planet X, or the closest exoplanet to Earth, 5-9 light years from the solar system.
Trip to Pluto
Participants in the second phase of the NIAC proposed less ambitious, but more realistic projects - a thermonuclear probe for studying Pluto, an autonomous tracked robot that can survive on Venus, a sail ship and a space "magnifier" for mining on asteroids.
A team of scientists from Princeton is proposing to use the PFRC fusion reactor, which is currently being developed at the university, as a motor and power source for the probe and lander to study Pluto. Both of these devices weighing a ton can be delivered to the dwarf planet, thanks to the high power of the reactor, in just four years. In orbit, the probe will generate about a megawatt of electricity, allowing for all the exploration imaginable.
Their rivals at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are creating a machine that could help the joint Russian-American mission, Venus-D, if it doesn't get political approval. Jonathan Sauder and his colleagues in the laboratory are creating a robot that could withstand the hellish conditions on the surface of Venus and work autonomously there for many months.
The secret of such survivability will be that the AREE rover will be almost completely devoid of electronic components and will resemble Leonardo Da Vinci's "automata" in its structure, and not modern Mars rovers and landing modules. Such a hybrid approach, according to scientists, will allow AREE to live a record long time on Venus and receive a lot of valuable geological information. As scientists plan, AREE will be equipped with a radioisotope power source and tracked chassis, which will maximize its life.
The active solar sail membrane will help you achieve ultra-high speeds with zero fuel consumption. Photo: Siegfried Janson
Private space startup TransAstra and the Aerospace Corporation are proposing two unusual probes that will cut the costs of launching and operating spacecraft. TransAstra engineers are working to create a special two-dimensional membrane spacecraft that can change its shape to maximize the amount of solar energy.
Experts from the Aerospace Corporation, in turn, are creating a probe capable of focusing the light of the Sun on the surface of asteroids and using its energy to extract minerals. Both, NIAC members hope, will reduce the cost of launching and building spacecraft and space exploration in general.
As NASA experts emphasize, both the "peaceful tractor" for Venus and other projects approved under the NIAC are still a matter of the distant future - it will take about ten more years to complete their development. Nevertheless, experts from the aerospace agency are confident that the potential of all approved innovations will be 100% realized.
