JAKARTA – NASA has provided new funding for six ‘like in science fiction’ concepts that will receive funding from its Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. One of them is the Mining Train project on the Moon, or FLOAT, which aims to use floating magnetic robots to transport up to 100 tons of material on the lunar surface every day.
The team behind the project plans to use a floating magnetic robot to transport materials in a reliable and autonomous way. The project is led by Dr. Ethan Schaler, a robotics engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who says that a long-lived robotic transport system will be critical to daily operations of a sustainable lunar base by the 2030s.
According to Dr. Schaler, they want to build the first lunar rail system that will provide reliable, autonomous, and efficient payload transport on the moon. This transportation system will use a flexible path that can be ‘opened’ directly on the lunar surface and will be powered by a series of magnetic robots floating above the line.
“We want to build a first lunar rail system, which will provide reliable, autonomous, and efficient payload transport on the moon,” said Dr. Schaler.
NASA has provided $600,000 (Rp 9.6 billion) in funds for the lunar rail project along with five other ‘scientific fiction’ concepts. Dr. Schaler and his team will use these funds to develop their technology further, including creating a series of miniature tracks and robots for follow-up testing.
FLOAT is one of six futuristic ideas that have been selected for phase two funding from NIAC, NASA’s ‘innovative advanced concept’ program. These projects range from liquid telescopes to plasma-powered rockets that can bring humans to Mars within two months.
If these projects are selected to proceed to the next stage, then they could even be considered for future NASA missions. John Nelson, executive of the NIAC program, said that these diverse concepts represent a fantastic Phase II study class.
Projects like FLOAT show that space exploration and colonialism are getting closer to reality, with futuristic dreams becoming a possible potential in the future.
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