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NASA Wants To Make Tractor Beams a Reality
intellitech sends this quote from a NASA news release:
"Tractor beams — the ability to trap and move objects using 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."
Reader Bob the Super Hamste adds, "The article along with the BBC's coverage discuss briefly three methods of how this can be done with lasers. The first method called 'optical tweezers,' in which a molecule is trapped where two beams cross (PDF). However, it requires an atmosphere to work. The second method using solenoid beams has already worked in the laboratory (PDF). The third method using Bessel beams has yet to be experimentally proven."
He has more experience working with them than anyone else.
Cue Congressional interference in 5...4...3...
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Um... just brainstorming here ... Jar, lid w/spring, tether, done.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Any sort of EM radiation can be beamed; the term is not exclusive to visible light.
Ever heard of a radio?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
fricken laser beams?
I mean, would finally be a way to get hot burritos out of the microwave safely.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Is anyone else disappointed that it is the BBC that has to cover this rather than an American source? I'm not saying that they aren't great reporters, just that it is disappointing that there is so little interest in America.
MSNBC, Forbes, and Wired have it and, er, that's it. On the one hand it is disappointing to see such a lack of interest, however on the other hand I fear that more mainstream sources would pay more attention to the cost while conveniently overlooking the benefits or feasibility, so maybe the less they say about it the better. This is the kind of thing that congressional Republicans get up in arms about because it sounds nice and vague, something pie-in-the-sky that they can spin as "more government waste" rather than an invaluable contribution to human development.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Doesn't require an atmosphere and can be done with one beam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers
.: Semper Absurda
Just tell the Republicans it is to fight communism, uh, drugs, children, terrorism, or whatever their current war is against and they will be happy to put in a gazillion dollars.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Can you provide a reference that the visible light was depicted as the effective mechanism, rather than as a side effect?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Can you provide a reference that the visible light was depicted as the effective mechanism, rather than as a side effect?
First filter criterion: Does the show depict laser beams as visible from any direction in space?
The enemies of Democracy are
Just tell the Republicans it is to fight communism, uh, drugs, children, terrorism, or whatever their current war is against
All of the above. Communist child terrorists smuggling drugs over the border. Oh and they're illegal immigrants too.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
There was a documentary on this in the 1980s where scientists were using beams to trap ghosts. Seemed to work pretty well then, I don't know why this has taken so long.