8 crazy projects being developed at NASA

One of the greatest sources of American inventions to come out of the 20th century is undeniably our National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The agency is responsible for a number of reputable feats including the first lunar landing and sending robots to Mars. At any given time, NASA is working on a host of projects that will hopefully turn into the “Next Big Thing,” and thanks to a number of incentives like the Small Business Technology Transfer program, much of ensuing technology finds its way into public/private domain. Here’s a look at eight of NASA’s current schemes:

Europa Drill

Perhaps the “coolest” of all these experiments is the Europa Drill. The project aims to continue our search for extraterrestrial life by drilling through the frozen crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa to reach the hidden ocean beneath. The ice crust is approximately 30 kilometers thick and requires a massive nuclear-powered drill to burrow through and simultaneously prevent the surrounding ice from freezing the drill in place. 

The Fed has already budgeted $15 million of NASA’s annual allowance to begin testing the needed technology on Alaska’s Matanuska Glacier, the closest thing on Earth we have to kilometer-thick walls of ice. The small-scale prototype drill — dubbed VALKYRIE — functions by absorbing water and heating it with the internal nuclear power source, then squirting the water back into the hole to prevent freezing. NASA is confident that an exponentially up-scaled drill is more than suitable for Europa’s frozen barrier.

EmDrive

Now that the futuristic EmDrive — previously known as the “impossible engine” — has been proven semi-possible, it’s only a matter of time before space travel is revolutionized. The engine creates thrust by generating microwaves using electricity and “bouncing the microwaves around in a closed container.” In other words, there’s no physical propellant needed in the engine and can function indefinitely as long as it remains capable of converting solar energy into electricity. 

The very notion of microwaves bouncing off the interior of an encapsulated environment contradicts Newton’s third law, stating that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. More specifically, in order for the microwaves to bounce off the wall, some form of initial thrust must exist to enact the bouncing; it can’t simply happen by itself. 

To everyone’s completely dumbfounded surprise, researchers from NASA Eagleworks were able to produce 30 to 50 micronewtorns of thrust when following the arithmetic outlined by the EmDrive’s designer, British scientist Roger Shawyer. Of course, years of experimentation will follow before anything is standardized, but at least Shawyer’s work has captured NASA’s attention.

Space farms Feeding astronauts aboard the ISS is predictable and relatively simply: when food stock runs low, a resupply shuttle arrives bearing gifts. By contrast, manned deep space missions must fend for themselves using sustainable methods of food production. NASA is currently testing a device called the Veg-01 to determine if vegetables grown in LED-fueled plant incubators are healthy for human consumption. Veg-01 holds six packets of red romaine lettuce seeds stuffed within fertilized clay that’s surrounded with Teflon bellows. Mature planets are flash-frozen and sent back to Earth to verify if growth was altered in any form by microgravity.

Osiris-Rex

Once it launches in 2016, the OSIRIS-Rex orbiter will fly up to a nearby asteroid called Bennu and snatch a sample using an extractor arm.  Bennu is thought to be an ancient asteroid fragment left over from the formation of Earth and the other planets in the solar system, making it a couple of billion years old. Scientists hope that studying the asteroid sample will reveal more key insight into the origin of life.

Mousetronauts

Earlier this summer, the Russian Federal Space Agency — Roscosmos — sent a team of geckos into space to observe the effects of copulating in microgravity. Following suit, NASA is ferrying a team of mice to the ISS to study the long-term effects of microgravity. The mice will spend their entire lives, roughly equivalent to two years, aboard the space station, allowing NASA to plot the differences between space-reared mice and the domestic variant. Mice have previously engaged in space missions, but never to this extent.

Dextre
Dextre, short for dexterous manipulator, is a robotic handyman of sorts stationed aboard the International Space Station. The 12-foot (3.5-meter)-long machine was conceived in a partnership between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) as a means of remotely performing routine maintenance outside the hull of the ISS, sparing astronauts the trouble of accidentally drifting off into the void. From deep within the ISS, astronauts can remotely pilot the robot’s octopus-like array of arms to cut wires, tighten bolts, attach things, or whatever they’re constantly doing outside spacecraft.

Drone air traffic control

NASA is developing a universal traffic management program for drones and all other low-flying objects (400 to 500 feet off the ground) to establish method of safely integrating the increasing number of these devices into U.S. airspace. The program is the first step toward legalizing commercial drone use.

Supersonic Bidirectional Flying Wing

The Bidirectional Flying Wing is blatant reminder that the first “A” in “NASA” is an abbreviation for the “Aeronautics.” The project is a concept designed by University of Miami professor Gacheng Za that was picked up by NASA as part of its Innovative Advanced Concepts Selected For Continued Study program. Professor Za’s design explores a symmetrical, slender-bodied, two-axis aircraft design that allows aircraft to fly at supersonic speeds without causing sonic booms. As a result, the technology has the potential to lift the ban on commercial supersonic flight in the U.S. since it eliminates the massive noise pollution caused by sonic booms. What’s truly interesting about the Bidirectional Flying Wing is that both the longitudinal axis and the latitudinal axis are symmetrical, granting the craft the look of a plus sign and allowing it to take off on either side.