According to foreign media reports, from the portable medical scanner in star trek to the alien farm in the expanse, science fiction often provides inspiration for the future research of NASA and other space agencies. NASA is recruiting researchers through its innovative advanced concepts (niac) program to explore similar science fiction ideas, some of which are likely to become a reality in the next 20 years < p > < / P > < p > ten years ago, it seemed a distant dream to operate a helicopter to fly on Mars or deploy a lunar rover to draw the moon's ice map, but the Mars helicopter took off earlier this year, and the lunar rover was also in the planning stage. Now, the conference organizers of the niac project have solicited more exploratory project proposals, some of which may eventually be funded by NASA < p > Jason derleth, project director of niac, said: "we invest in long-term and seemingly unreachable technologies, most of which may not work. But if they succeed, everything may change. This is a high-risk and high return portfolio, which is no different from venture capital." < / P > < p > delleth also said, The focus of this project is not incremental development, but to seek technologies that change the rules of the game, which are ten times better than the most advanced technologies at present. He compared it to DARPA, a research and development agency under the U.S. Department of defense, which also explored highly speculative concepts, but helped develop modern Internet pioneers and other innovations < p > so far, the proposals discussed at this year's meeting, such as a new method of launching a collapsible space station or astronaut habitat, or extracting resources from other worlds, have revolved around the idea that in order to support long space travel, each rocket launch must be made full use of < p > future space tourists will need more resources to survive, protective facilities and fuel to support further travel or return home. Amelia Greig, an aeronautical engineer at the University of Texas at El Paso, said: "this leaves us two choices: first, bring everything, just like you're going hiking in the desert; second, find new and creative ways to make use of everything we have." < / P > < p > mining multiple lunar resources at one time < / P > < p > in order to help creatively reuse lunar resources, Greg and her colleagues proposed a technology called "ablation arc mining", which can absorb water ice and various metals that can be used as building materials. In her speech, she said, "it's like mining lunar resources with controllable lightning." < / P > < p > in Greg's idea, she described a van sized lunar crawler named after the sand crawler in Star Wars. The crawler will choose its own location, and then deploy a ring device with the front end parallel to the ground. The arc will strike a ring up to one meter in diameter and tear apart particles on the lunar surface. After these particles are charged, they can move and classify according to the electromagnetic field of the machine. In this way, a single device can fill one container with water, another container with oxygen attached to other elements, and other containers with silicon, aluminum or other metal particles, rather than limited to the exploitation of one resource < p > however, like all early concepts, "ablative arc mining" technology also faces practical challenges that must be overcome. For example, lunar dust may get stuck in the crawler and cause problems. Therefore, the machine must be dustproof. In order to find water ice, the reptile must also move to a crater that lacks light, which contains about 6% water by mass, but is extremely cold and dark < p > for this purpose, the electronic equipment of the crawler must be designed to work under those rugged conditions and use non solar power. In addition, it may be difficult for astronauts to monitor them, although they can monitor the mining process at the edge of the crater. NASA estimates that permanent settlements on the moon need about 10000 kilograms of water a year, which will require at least 20 crawlers to wander around and gradually collect these supplies, unless the technology is supplemented. Currently, Greg hopes to test a smaller demo version of the crawler in a few years < p > the space mining project also raises ethical issues. For example, scientists and others worry that mining on the moon may permanently change the appearance of the moon in the night sky. But Greg pointed out that the impact of "ablative arc mining" technology on the environment does not seem to be as great as on earth. Moreover, the mining area may disperse or make some craters deeper. As for sustainable development, she said: "there is enough water for human habitation for hundreds of years." < / P > < p > folding space station with 150 times expansion < / P > < p > as a potential launch point for lunar tourism and deep space exploration, NASA proposed to establish a space station around the moon, called lunar gateway. But Zachary Manchester (Zachary Manchester), a robotics expert at Carnegie Mellon University, believes that the size of the rocket is limited after all and there is little possibility of launching a large structure for the lunar space station. If you want to launch something larger than the rocket fairing, it can only be a few meters long at most. You must launch it with multiple rockets and assemble it in orbit, such as the international space station. Or it must be compressed in some way and then expanded out in some way

at the latest meeting, Manchester and University of Washington Mechanical Engineer Jeffrey Lipton (Jeffrey Lipton) proposed a space station suitable for launch into a narrow space. After reaching space, it will unfold automatically, just like origami, into a full-size space building, about 150 times larger than when folded. The preliminary design includes a multi joint structure made of titanium, aluminum or other metals < p > since future astronauts may stay on the space station for a long time, it will need to rotate to generate artificial gravity to avoid the harmful effects of long-term zero gravity on health. But humans are very sensitive to rotation. No one always wants to stay on the merry go round. "If you're trying to build a rotating space habitat, the only way you won't feel dizzy is to rotate at a rate of two laps per minute," Manchester said.

Manchester believes that to generate gravity similar to earth, such a space station needs to be up to 1000 meters in diameter. However, cramming such a huge building into a narrow space until it is deployed will be a major engineering challenge. In addition, in order to make theirAs the idea became a reality, Manchester and Lipton ultimately needed to figure out how to keep the folding space station from being entangled during the deployment process, although the structure has thousands of joints. p> < p > using fungi to build space habitat < / P > < p > just like packaging for long-distance road travel, NASA will face similar challenges when installing everything needed for lunar or Martian structures on rockets. To reduce the burden, some scientists suggest using Martian rocks as materials for 3D printing structural components. But Lynn Rothschild, an Astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center, has a completely different idea. She hopes to use mushrooms to make such facilities, or what she calls "fungal structures". "Humble mushrooms can provide incredible building materials. They are completely natural and the ultimate green building," she said. < / P > < p > although fungi can be used to cultivate materials to make real bricks and mortar that astronauts can use to build, the best space habitat will be assembled before they arrive. Rothschild's team suggested launching a lander that would include plastic scaffolds and fungal mycelium, the white filaments that form the root structure of fungi < p > the support will be a lattice composed of square hollow plastic units, stitched layer by layer to form the shape of the final facility. On Mars, it may expand to the size of a garage. Using water and oxygen (probably at least in part from Mars), fungi will grow along these sutures and fill the lattice, eventually turning the tent like structure into a mature space building < p > Rothschild believes that some dark fungi can even help enhance the ability to resist space radiation. "They look a little disgusting, but this black pigment often protects fungi and people in their habitat from radiation," she said, hoping to send demonstration prototypes to the international space station in the next few years < p > unlike the moon, Mars may have been suitable for life. Therefore, Rothschild is designing scaffolds to prevent any fungi that may endanger Martian life and environment from escaping outside. The last thing NASA wants is to find something from earth when looking for life on other planets. In Rothschild's design, fungi are basically in a "double-layer bag", that is, a protective layer is added in the plastic lattice to ensure that they remain inside < p > in order to solve these problems, the space agency invited planetary protection experts, such as moogega Cooper, director of biotechnology and planetary protection team of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He said at the niac meeting: "Wherever you may interact with liquid water, your exploration will certainly attract our attention. After all, where there is water, there may be life." the United States is the outer space treaty The treaty requires every space agency or company that wants to launch a mission to the alien world to ensure that spacecraft and all equipment on the spacecraft are disinfected. < / P > < p > although the annual budget of the niac project is only $8.5 million, it supports many exploratory projects. Some ideas put forward at this meeting may enter the next stage, or It may be adopted by other institutions or private companies, such as an earlier proposal to use a laser to push a smartphone sized spacecraft to another star system, which inspired the private enterprise breakthrough starshot. "All these concepts are driving our understanding, and they really enable us to turn the scenes in science fiction into reality," Cooper said (small) < / P > < p >