How It Works World of Tomorrow 2017

PLUS: AMAZING GADGETS INSIDE! EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE FUTURE WELCOME TO Do you ever wish you had a crystal ball so you could take a peek at what is to come in the distant future? Well, now you can, with How It Works World of Tomorrow! While it’s no magical artifact, it does offer a glimpse of future developments in transport, medicine, entertainment and space travel based on the innovations taking place in the present day, and speculations made by scientists and engineers. Learn more about how humans will live, interact and better the planet we live on (as well as other planets) in the future. You can expect flying cars, moon colonies and bionic limbs, but you’ll also discover how virtual reality will develop to influence every part of society, if you will be able to 3D print a customisable pizza, how our smartphones will soon bend to fit in our pocket and how we might cure big killers like cancer and AIDS. . Whether you want to know if driverless cars will one day rule the streets, or whether Elon Musk will succeed in his mission to bring human settlements to Mars, you will find the answer in this book. No crystal ball required. WORLD OF TOMORROW Future Publishing Ltd Richmond House 33 Richmond Hill Bournemouth Dorset BH2 6EZ +44 (0) 1202 586200 Website www.futureplc.com Creative Director Aaron Asadi Editorial Director Ross Andrews Editor In Chief Jon White Production Editor Sanne de Boer Senior Art Editor Greg Whitaker Assistant Designer Briony Duguid Cover images Thinkstock Printed by William Gibbons, 26 Planetary Road, Willenhall, West Midlands, WV13 3XT Distributed in the UK, Eire & the Rest of the World by Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU.  0203 787 9060 www.marketforce.co.uk Distributed in Australia by Gordon & Gotch Australia Pty Ltd, 26 Rodborough Road, Frenchs Forest, NSW, 2086 Australia  +61 2 9972 8800 www.gordongotch.com.au Disclaimer The publisher cannot accept responsibility for any unsolicited material lost or damaged in the post. All text and layout is the copyright of Future Publishing Limited. Nothing in this bookazine may be reproduced in whole or part without the written permission of the publisher. All copyrights are recognised and used specifically for the purpose of criticism and review. Although the bookazine has endeavoured to ensure all information is correct at time of print, prices and availability may change. This bookazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein. How It Works World Of Tomorrow © 2016 Future Publishing Limited Part of the bookazine series CONTENTS WORLD OF TOMORROW 08 Inside the world of tomorrow 033 New smart motorcycles TRANSPORT 20 Hypersonic flight 28 Future of driving 32 On board the Dream Chaser 33 The rise of smart motorcycles 34 The fuel of the future 020 Hypersonic 38 Take a ride on a personal submarine 40 Next-gen emergency vehicles planes 138 Can we live on LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT the moon? 48 Virtual reality 56 Future of food 62 Future of cinema 68 How will we shop? 72 78 Travel 2050 Future of teaching 068 How will 82 The Martin Jetpack we shop? 83 Your new smartphone is flexible 120 What’s life 046 on Mars like? Virtual reality takes over SPACE 120 Life on Mars 128 Osiris Rex 130 Inside Spaceport America 132 Traveller’s guide to the Solar system 136 Farming on alien planets 098 Nanotech 137 Rockets of past, present and future in medicine 138 Living on the moon 007 WORLD OF TOMORROW INSIDE THE WORLD OF Solar power Buildings would incorporate solar panels into their walls to harvest energy. Farmscrapers Wind power High-rise flats could grow The farmscrapers would food both inside and outside also have wind farms on the buildings, helping to their roofs to make use of create natural insulation. unhindered wind energy. Urban spaces By building up rather than out, cities will have room for spaces for recreation and leisure. Water collection Rainwater could be collected on the roofs of buildings, which would then be used in the homes below. 008 DID YOU KNOW? Solar power is expected to become the largest source of electricity by 2050 Experience the lean, green cities we’ll soon be living in ajor cities are often viewed as grey, eTrees Trees with solar panels instead of leaves can M energy-guzzling monoliths, but the cities of the future could change everything. As the planet’s store of fossil fuels provide charging stations for dries up, we are looking for new ways to power phones and free lighting. our cities in sustainable but spectacular- looking ways. Skyscrapers will become towering greenhouses as vertical farming takes hold. Crops would be grown between storeys, taking advantage of the Sun’s energy while using minimal ground space. These ecological super-buildings would have photovoltaic solar-cell facades and be topped by wind turbines, making these homes the ultimate self-sustaining structures. Tomorrow’s city centres could look very different as groups gather below solar powered Energy storage Excess energy produced trees. These so-called eTrees offer more than by solar panels and wind just shade, as the energy produced from the farms would be stored in solar panels transforms them into mobile batteries and fed back into the national grid. phone charging stations, free Wi-Fi and night lighting. The solar energy also activates an LCD screen that displays information such as the weather and educational content. Building upward would allow plenty of room on the ground for urban social areas as well as luminous plants. These are implanted with light-giving compounds known as luciferins, which will make the greenery glow at night as a cost-effective and eco-friendly method of illuminating tomorrow’s cities. Far from being a scary, soulless world as shown in movies like Judge Dredd and Blade Runner, the future cities promise to be bright, spacious and green, making the most of the amazing natural resources we have at our disposal already. © Science Photo Library; Getty; Corbis; Dreamstime Virtual fitting rooms Plants replace street lamps This tech is already here! Some stores Researchers at the Glowing Plant offer you the chance to superimpose project have transferred firefly genes clothes onto your body using a tablet or into plants to make them glow in the smartphone app. dark and light your way home. 009 WORLD OF TOMORROW TOMORROW’S TRANSPORT Why getting from A to B will soon become a breeze hen you hear the term ‘transport of air thanks to its Rotax 912 engine. This would you around. The Google driverless car has W the future’ your mind will generally turn to flying cars. Excitingly, they’re already on their way. AeroMobil has unveiled reduce the traff ic in future cities, making the streets safer for people on the ground. Also, companies such as Amazon and DHL are already completed over 1,125,000 kilometres (700,000 miles) of accident-free driving using GPS satellites to map routes and on-board the third version of its flying vehicle. Capable of trialling drones that can deliver parcels under 2.3 cameras to search for hazards. switching in seconds between car and plane, kilograms (five pounds), which Amazon says These cars could be used as taxis – which you could wing your way to your destination, makes up 86 per cent of their deliveries. The use of would be summoned by a smartphone app – free from traffic jams and roadworks. On the drones will clear the streets and air as they will and would drive closer to each other and more ground, the AeroMobil uses regular petrol and be battery or solar powered. eff iciently than human drivers, meaning that fits into any standard parking space, but can If you still felt like you wanted to stay on the no one need ever own a car. Unless it’s an reach 200 kilometres (124 miles) per hour in the ground, however, driverless taxis could ferry amazing flying car, that is. Flying car Composition The AeroMobil has a steel Safety In the event of an aerial framework covered by a problem, the AeroMobil The plane-car hybrid carbon coating, giving it has a parachute- that will change our strength and lightness. deployment system. travelling forever Length The 6m (19.7ft)-long body makes it 38 per cent longer than the 2014 Ford Focus, so bay parking might be tricky. Fuel range Engine The petrol- You can travel 875km (540mi) powered Rotax 912 on the road and 700km (435mi) engine throws out 100hp in the air, so you could travel the (74.6kW), making the length of England. aerial top speed 200km/h (124mph) and 160km/h (100mph) on the road. Wings The wings span 8.2m (27ft) and are fully collapsible, enabling the AeroMobil to act as a normal car. Seating There is only room for two people, so it’s probably not ideal for families! 010 DID YOU KNOW? Even though it’s a flying car, the AeroMobil uses regular gasoline The AeroMobil’s dashboard is a little more complicated than today’s cars’ Delivery drones At the moment delivery companies spend huge sums of money and use enormous amounts of fuel on delivering parcels, but in the city of the future drones could take on the task. Amazon and DHL are testing out drones that could deliver the majority of their products. These autonomous flying vehicles are lightweight and can be pre-programmed to reach their destination, guided by satellites. They could deliver to hard-to-reach areas such as islands and take a huge number of vehicles off the roads. As they are powered either by batteries or solar power, they wouldn’t be a drain on resources like delivery trucks either. At the moment it is still illegal in the US for Amazon to use their drones for commercial reasons, although the company is in talks with the FAA to work around this. As the technology is already there it is looking increasingly likely that these devices could be in our skies within the next few years. Kick back and let the car of the future drive you around Driverless taxis There is a very good chance that in the future, no one need ever own a car. Just like London and New York’s bike-rental scheme, driverless cars could be summoned to your house and drive you to work. As they will drive themselves with much © Science Photo Library; Alamy; AeroMobil; Dreamstime quicker reactions than humans and can’t be distracted, they will be able to run at a steady speed, closer together and with fewer accidents, removing the main causes of traffic jams. Rooftop cameras will use lasers to scan the road ahead at a range beyond that of human vision. A second camera will look to the sides for hazards like pedestrians or animals. The guidance system will use GPS, altimeters and gyroscopes to keep track of where it is and where it is going. As 90 TheAeroMobil’s road per cent of a car’s life is spent parked, version looks fittingly autonomous hire cars could become the most futuristic and sleek efficient way to get around. 011 WORLD OF TOMORROW TOMORROW’S The microscopic MEDICINE Nanorobotics tech that saves your life from within T he area of nanomedicine is one that is advancing so rapidly that doctors could The microsurgeons that will soon be piloting miniature robots be saving your life through your body to diagnose and even battle illness. It is expected that within 20 years, molecular manufacturing will have reduced the size of robots to White blood cells roughly the size of bacteria, White blood cells won’t Entry meaning they can enter the body attack and destroy the Nanorobots the nanorobots because the size of bacteria to spot and even cure disease. material used is not will be injected The miniscule robots could be seen as invasive. into the patient. programmed to behave like a white blood cell, seeking out illness-causing bacteria or germs, latching onto them and slicing Tiny tech them up into molecules too small Nanorobots to do any further damage. Doctors will be powered could then remove the robots by Through the body by microscopic using an ultrasound signal to They will be small enough engines and to travel through veins, manoeuvred by direct the robots toward the Resistance-free arteries and capillaries. ultrasound kidneys where they would get As they work so quickly, manipulation. their targets would not washed out in urine. be able to build up a Another potential use for resistance, making them nanorobots in medicine is actual repeatedly effective. surgery. A set of chromosomes would be manufactured outside the body and attached to a nanorobot. This would head straight toward a diseased cell, remove the damaged chromosomes and replace them with the healthy ones. Another fascinating area of study is anti-ageing. Researchers have managed to restore the health of cells in a two-year-old mouse making it as fit as a Volume six-month-old mouse. By Mass production would injecting nicotinamide Attack robots enable up to 100 billion adenine dinucleotide (NAD) Tiny blades could slice nanorobots injected at a time to treat diseases. into the mice, scientists through tumours, destroying cancerous increased the level of cells but leaving healthy communication between cells untouched. cells. This is very important, as a lack of Blood clots communication between The nanorobots could cells is heavily linked to remove blood clots that diabetes, dementia and cancer. block arteries and cause heart attacks. It’s hoped that this scientific breakthrough will ultimately be proven successful in humans. 012 DID YOU KNOW? The Boris 2 requires countless calculations to assess the size, weight and shape of unfamiliar objects TOMORROW’S Boris 2 has five-fingered dextrous hands that are controlled by 20 motors ROBOTS The tech that will keep us happy, healthy and up-to-date Medical The da Vinci SI surgical robot is the world’s most advanced robotic surgeon. It is operated via a master control unit that moves the four arms of the machine while the surgeon looks through an HD camera. This allows greater precision during surgery, greatly improving patient comfort and recovery. Domestic A robot called Boris 2 is one of the first in the world to intelligently grip unfamiliar objects. Developed by scientists at the University of Birmingham, the autonomous robot was designed with loading the dishwasher in mind – a chore that encompasses a range of general manipulation tasks. © Science Photo Library; Alamy; Andy Fox, University of Birmingham; Dreamstime Pepper understands your emotions and can also express its own Recreation Pepper is a humanoid robot designed to live with us. Sensors are used to gauge your facial expressions, listen to you, learn your body language and react accordingly. It’s a social robot that will try to cheer you up when The four arms of da Vinci SI can be much more you’re sad by playing your accurate than a surgeon favourite song, for example. 013 WORLD OF TOMORROW Could smart lenses replace your smartphone? AUGMENTED WORLD Discover what we’ll see through the augmented-reality contact lenses Smart lenses are contact lenses that display information such as routes, weather and your Facebook news feed into your peripheral vision. At the moment, the most likely team to crack this is Innovega with its Sightseeing One Times Square is the iOptik contact lens, but this system site for the famous New still uses a pair of glasses that Year’s Eve Ball Drop. project semi-transparent screens onto the lens. The lens contains optical micro-components that Offers change the angle of the light, 20m (66ft) back to focusing it into the pupil. This helps the left is Toys R Us. Free cuddly toy with the wearer to focus on the near-eye purchases over object they otherwise wouldn’t $50. Offer available have been able to. until Sunday. It is hoped that within three years a working prototype will be available that does away with the Shopping Forward 50m glasses entirely, using a (164ft) and turn microcamera embedded into the left to visit the three-storey lens itself. M&M’s World. It is already possible for technology to be implanted into a contact lens. A team from South Korea has mounted an LED onto a Hotel normal contact lens, which shows Dining Back 20m (66ft) to the potential of adding technology Back 30m (100ft) to the five-star New visit Planet Hollywood, York Marriott to these optical aids. the world-famous Marquis Hotel with restaurant filled with the famous movie memorabilia. revolving roof. Expedia rating is 4.1. 014 DID YOU KNOW? Although it’s a futuristic method, the Z Machine has actually been in use since 1996 TOMORROW’S ENERGY Fusion power: clean energy for tomorrow’s power stations Nuclear fusion is an incredibly exciting new them apart. When protons come into close contact, direction that could provide Earth with huge the electromagnetic force pushes them apart in amounts of clean energy. In nuclear fusion, helium what is called the Coulomb barrier. 40 million nuclei are forced together to create a new atomic degrees Celsius (72 million degrees Fahrenheit) of nucleus. The atomic mass of the two nuclei is heat is needed to break through the Coulomb greater than the mass of the resulting nucleus, so barrier and allow the nuclei to fuse. This extreme the extra mass is given off as energy. This can be heat could be provided by the Z Machine produced harvested for practical uses. by Sandia National Laboratories, USA. This machine The main barrier to nuclear fusion is uses electricity to create radiation that heats the temperature. Nucleons are held together by strong walls of the facility to nearly 2 billion degrees forces, while an electromagnetic force tries to pry Celsius (3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit). The amazing Z Machine creates enough heat for Calorie counter nuclei to break through So far today you have the Coulomb barrier walked 8.2km in two hours. This has burned 495 calories. Weather The current temperature is 18°C (64°F) and sunny. There is a ten per cent chance of rain. Entertainment Turn to your right to buy tickets for a range of Broadway shows including Book Of Mormon and Matilda. © Thinkstock; Dreamstime; Corbis; Alamy Location There are three of your Facebook friends within 1km (0.62mi). Connect with them? 015 WORLD OF TOMORROW COLONISING MARS The tech that will help us go where no man has gone before ver since Neil Armstrong set foot on the The reaction between nano-aluminium from a tiny bolt to a huge satellite dish means E Moon, there have been dreams to colonise other bodies in the Solar System, something that is becoming increasingly viable powder and water creates a powerful blast of hydrogen gas and aluminium oxide. This provides the thrust for a rocket to launch without that missions can leave without bulky payloads on board. All these advances in technology have pushed thanks to advancements in space travel and weighing too much. Solar technology, such as forward the possibility of inhabiting another space suits. that used on the Rosetta comet-chasing probe, planet. Mars One is a project that aims to have Voyager 1 has travelled just short of 20 billion will also reduce the reliance on fuel, further humans living on Mars by 2025. They hope to kilometres (12.4 billion miles) from planet Earth, lightening the load. achieve this by sending up rovers and life- but so far, humans have only reached the Moon, MIT has developed a skintight space suit that support units within the next eight years, which which is 384,400 kilometres (239,000 miles) essentially shrink-wraps the astronaut, will seek out a location close enough to the poles away. The main reasons behind the difficulty of providing counter-pressure to the atmosphere. for water, close enough to the equator for solar sending humans further distances are fuel This will be much lighter and more flexible than power and flat enough to build on. The life- storage, costs and the comfort of the astronauts. current space suits, making extended periods of support units will leech water from the soil by At least one of these conditions has to be wear much more bearable. heating subsurface ice. Some will be stored and compromised for a long-distance journey into 3D printing has also paved the way for some used for creating oxygen, nitrogen and space and that has held us back but that could missions in space to be much more streamlined. argon, which should make the atmosphere soon change. The ability to design and print almost anything breathable before the first humans arrive. Escape vehicle In the event of an emergency the Terraforming inhabitants of the Chlorofluorocarbons planet will have a will be released into Clothing means of escape. the atmosphere to Space suits will be required trap the Sun’s heat and until the atmospheric create an ozone layer. conditions are right, but lighter, more mobile suits Factories are in development. The chlorofluorocarbons will be manufactured in factories from soil and air, well in time for the first crew’s arrival. Housing module Inhabitants would live inside pressurised domes, which are connected to the water supply. Supplies Water will be extracted from the Martian surface by heating ice. 016 DID YOU KNOW? The Falcon 9 was developed by SpaceX, a private research facility owned by Elon Musk Reaching Mars To make it to the Red Planet, new spaceships are needed – these are the best ones currently in development VASIMR The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket converts gas into magnetised plasma, providing powerful fuel to shorten the journey. Falcon 9 Saturn V A two-stage King of the Apollo era, reusable rocket NASA’s three-stage that will take the rocket successfully spaceship to launched 13 times. A Mars. It is similar design, such as designed by NASA’s Space Launch private space System (SLS), could also company SpaceX. take astronauts to Mars. Crew capsules NASA’s Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle or SpaceX’s Dragon capsule could carry the colonists to Mars. © Sol90; Dreamstime 017 TRANSPORT 032 On board the 040 Emergency Dream Chaser vehicles 018 20 Hypersonic flight Soon enough, transatlantic flights will last a few hours 28 Future of driving Will cars become completely autonomous in the future? 32 On board the Dream Chaser This autonomous space plane has a great journey ahead of it 33 Smart motorcycles BMW is looking to create the new motorcycle standard 34 The fuel of the future Will we find new, clean ways to provide energy? 38 Take a ride in a personal submarine Submarines will no longer be reserved for the military 033 The rise of the 40 Next-gen emergency vehicles Ambulances and police cars will smart motorcycle be bigger, faster, and safer 038 Get your own submarine 019 TRANSPORT 5 TIMES THE SPEED OF SOUND HYPERSONIC FLIGHT 020 DID YOU KNOW? The crack of a whip is actually a sonic boom – the end of a whip can reach Mach 2 link and you’ll miss them, but you’ll beginning. We’ve already created aircraft that building new and innovative aircraft. B definitely hear them. Hypersonic aircraft may look similar to the jet planes we’re familiar with, but these engineering marvels are can reach Mach 20 – that’s nearly seven kilometres per second! As long as these vehicles can withstand the pressure in the atmosphere, This technology reveals new realms of possibility that would make air travel more efficient and convenient than ever before. completely different beasts. Able to attain they can keep moving faster and faster. Imagine travelling halfway around the world in speeds that would literally tear a conventional For over 30 years we were able to use Concorde just a few hours, or seeing a spacecraft climb into passenger jet apart, hypersonic aircraft possess to fly at supersonic speeds. It broke through the the upper atmosphere without a gigantic rocket. unique engines, are built from advanced sound barrier and revolutionised air travel. But The most exciting part is that this isn’t the stuff materials and are packed full of intelligent tech. now the aim is to go faster than ever, with jets of science fiction – we’ve already flown vehicles So just how fast are they? By definition, a and commercial airliners capable of reaching at hypersonic speeds, and researchers are now supersonic vehicle can move faster than the even greater speeds. This is, of course, no simple developing hypersonic planes suitable for public speed of sound – or Mach 1 – which is 1,235 task, but little over a century after the Wright use. Read on for more of these incredible feats of kilometres per hour, or 343 metres per second. brothers first took to the skies, we’re still engineering and the faster world that awaits us. But to be classed as hypersonic, planes must fly at least five times this speed – 6,175 kilometres per hour, or 1,715 metres per second. And their “Hypersonic aircraft attain speeds that would speed isn’t limited to Mach 5; that’s just the tear a conventional passenger jet apart” Hypersonic vs supersonic Below Mach 1 The aircraft compresses For many years experts believed it was simply impossible to fly faster than the speed of sound. But that all changed in the 1940s, the air in front as it moves when US test pilot Chuck Yeager flew faster than Mach 1 – the forward and emits noise speed of sound – for the first time in human history. from its engines, forming Onlookers below heard the sonic boom as the pressurised air waves that move away at gave way to the Bell X-1 rocket plane, and they realised that the speed of sound. supersonic aircraft were dealing with new extremes. SUBSONIC But although supersonic aircraft have to overcome many SPEED obstacles to break the sound barrier, these factors are compounded when moving at hypersonic speeds. At Mach 5 and above, the air does more than just form shock waves. At such high speeds, the air heats the surface of the aircraft to very high temperatures – enough to melt steel – and the engines have to cope with huge pressures. Wavefronts What causes a sonic boom? Why breaking through the sound barrier is such a noisy affair MACH 1 At Mach 1 When the aircraft reaches the speed of sound, the air being Continuous boom compressed cannot An aircraft travelling faster than Mach 1 is Shock cone move away fast constantly producing shock waves, which enough, so the waves merge to form a cone. In certain conditions, accumulate at the this is visible as a conical cloud of water vapour. nose of the plane. Around 75 passengers could be transported © Thinkstock; Imaginactive.org / Ray Mattison; Oscar Viñals at Mach 10 inside the Skreemr SUPERSONIC SPEED Above Mach 1 As the plane exceeds the speed of sound, it overtakes the waves. This causes a change in air pressure, or a shock wave, which is heard as a sonic boom. 021 TRANSPORT BUILDING A HYPERSONIC VEHICLE The challenges and successes in the engineering community’s quest for hypersonic flight Supersonic aircraft such as Concorde differed materials such as ceramics. And they can’t stop rocket engines – the only proven systems to greatly from their subsonic counterparts. They there, because even if they are able to withstand power hypersonic vehicles – engineers asked had adapted wing designs and advanced the heat, the pressure at low altitudes is simply themselves a more ambitious question: could we engines. These changes allowed Concorde to too great to fly at hypersonic speeds. Hypersonic take what we’ve learned about the jet engine smash through the sound barrier, which is vehicles need to climb high up into the and design an equivalent that works at high something subsonic commercial jets were atmosphere, where the air is much thinner, in supersonic, and even hypersonic, speeds? simply unable to do. order to lessen the strain on the aircraft. This led to the invention of the supersonic The difference between a supersonic and a Perhaps the biggest consequence of the combustible ramjet, or scramjet. Taking the hypersonic aircraft is even more striking, intense airflow is that hypersonic vehicles can’t principles of a jet engine and stripping away all because at hypersonic speeds the rules change even use the same engines as subsonic aircraft. of the unnecessary components for hypersonic completely. The previously benign air starts to Air moving through supersonic plane engines travel – such as a turbine and a compressor – become a serious problem, as aircraft moving at does so at subsonic speeds (the supersonic allows air to move through much more quickly. hypersonic speed generate huge amounts of airflow is slowed by an engine inlet), but if you With few moving parts, these simple-looking friction. This results in temperatures hot enough tried using a similar setup when travelling at engines produce enough thrust for an aircraft to to melt the frame of a standard jet, so hypersonic hypersonic speeds, it would melt or simply soar at incredible speeds; and in doing so, have aircraft must be built from robust heat-resistant explode before your eyes. But rather than rely on started to bring the future of air travel to life. The scramjet “At hypersonic Meet the supersonic combusting scramjet, an engine that thrives at ‘Ramming’ speeds the rules hypersonic speeds Air is forcibly packed into the engine due to the immense change completely” speed of the aircraft. Supersonic flow Airflow is slightly slowed to increase temperature and pressure but still flows through the engine at supersonic speeds. Speed Scramjets are most efficient at hypersonic speeds starting from around Mach 6. Supersonic airflow ‘Air-breathing’ engine An inlet conditions the Unlike rockets, scramjets rely airflow before delivering it to on air from the atmosphere to Scramjet the engine, where heat is then added in order to burn their fuel. Subsonic airflow Air is drawn into the engine by engine generate the thrust needed. turbines and compressed, slowing the flow to subsonic speeds. Speed Conventional jet engines are capable of operating at speeds of up to Mach 3.5. Combustion Compressed air combusts the fuel source and leaves at Conventional a higher temperature and pressure through the exhaust, producing thrust. jet engine 022 DID YOU KNOW? A hypersonic vehicle would experience 492,000kg/m2 of pressure if flown at ground level The Waverider’s hypersonic design is partly incorporated into many of Boeing’s hypersonic vehicles MAKING HYPERSONIC FLIGHT A REALITY We spoke with Boeing’s chief scientist of hypersonics, Dr Kevin Bowcutt, about the future of high-speed travel Dr Kevin Bowcutt is the senior technical temperature, fellow and chief scientist of hypersonics at and that are Boeing. He is an AIAA Fellow, a Fellow of the lightweight and Royal Aeronautical Society, and also a durable, remains a member of the National Academy of challenge, although good progress is being Engineering. He holds BS, MS and PhD made in their development. Scaling up degrees in aerospace engineering from the scramjets to larger sizes (beyond small jet University of Maryland, US. engine size in terms of air flow rate) and speeds above Mach 7 is another diff iculty Why is Boeing so interested in due to ground testing limitations. hypersonic technology? Integrating low-speed and high-speed Boeing is interested in hypersonic propulsion systems into combined cycle technology for several reasons, including engines is another area for further application to missiles, aircraft, and space development; combined cycle engines are planes. Hypersonic airplanes may someday required to accelerate from zero to whisk passengers and cargo across oceans hypersonic speed. Additional challenges in an hour or two, enabling international include vehicle thermal management and day trips. Perhaps most exciting of all, thermo-structural health monitoring, as reusable hypersonic space planes may make well as designing highly integrated systems transportation to Earth’s orbit more like such as hypersonic vehicles, driving the flying in an airplane than a rocket, and need for MDAO. On top of this, adequate The X-43 was the first aircraft to travel at Mach 7, enduring 1,650 therefore much more affordable – up to 100- funding is a perennial problem, although degrees Celsius in the process times cheaper. the situation is improving. What hypersonic technologies are you What is the overall goal of your project? currently developing? While Boeing is not developing a hypersonic Key enablers to make hypersonic flight a airliner, and does not see a near-term Thrust Pressurised air combusts the reality include lighter and more durable demand for the product, we continue to fuel source and produces high-temperature materials, increased research many advanced hypersonic thrust as it exits the engine. hypersonic engine efficiency, and advanced concepts and technologies, so that we are sensing and data analysis technologies. On prepared if the market develops for such the technology front we are developing vehicles. The potential for hypersonic advanced high-temperature ceramic matrix aircraft in the future will require further composite materials, structures, and advances in several areas of technology, as thermal protection systems. We are also well as market demand. Ultimately, we developing, and have applied, advanced want to help create the future of flight: hypersonic vehicle design methods based ultra-rapid global transportation and on multidisciplinary design analysis and routine and affordable space access. optimisation (MDAO). We have designed, and continue to study, hypersonic vehicle How do you picture the future of concepts such as missiles, reconnaissance hypersonic flight? aircraft, passenger airplanes, and reusable Although it’s likely to be a few decades launch vehicles (space planes). We have away, I envision a future where Mach 5 built and successfully flown two scramjet- airplanes fly people between international powered experimental vehicles, the NASA cities in a couple of hours, and space planes X-43A and the USAF/DARPA X-51A. routinely fly people to a hub in Earth’s orbit © SPL; Alamy; US Air Force for connecting flights to the Moon or Mars. What are the main challenges you Eventually, these vehicles will be powered currently face? by clean, high-density energy, probably Finding materials that withstand very high some form of safe nuclear power. 023 TRANSPORT THE FUTURE OF HYPERSONIC Exploring the concepts that could one day replace the jet plane FLIGHT If there’s one lesson that we’ve learned about Passengers hypersonic flight so far, it’s that heat, weight and power are all major obstacles. Too much weight, Hypersonic hopefuls Up to 300 passengers plus baggage can be transported, Rival aerospace engineers are tackling the ensuring ticket prices remain and you can’t reach the desired speed. Too much same mission in two very different ways competitive with those of heat, and your aircraft will melt mid-flight. And subsonic airliners. then there’s the question of how we can power our machine to hypersonic speeds and keep it there. Fortunately, solutions for each of these critical problems have been suggested – and some seriously cool aircraft have been designed in the process. Innovative engineers such as Charles Bombardier have been at the forefront of these endeavours. His envisioned aircraft, called Skreemr, would take to the skies with the help of an electrical launch system such as a railgun – so Airframe The shape of the aircraft Rocket booster we could be bidding farewell to runways one allows the pilot to As the turbojet engines maintain control across are retracted, a rocket day. A railgun is an electromagnetic strip that uses electricity to launch projectiles at incredible ULTRA-RAPID the full Mach range. engine pushes the plane beyond Mach 1. speeds, and could be used to fire the Skreemr AIR VEHICLE into the air. This would eliminate the need for AIRBUS tons of extra rocket fuel for take-off, reducing the Mounted ramjet engines These engines generate thrust aircraft’s weight considerably. once the aircraft has reached a Another design by Bombardier, known as the high altitude and is travelling at Antipode, could tackle the heat problem as well supersonic speeds. as the menacing sonic boom. By using counter- flowing jets of air that move outwards in front of the aircraft, the temperature generated from aerodynamic friction and the sound produced by the sonic shock waves would be significantly reduced. And these features would help the Antipode fly up to Mach 24, equivalent to 29,500 kilometres per hour! These designs are still some time away from being realised, but Airbus and Reaction Engines have recently generated Rotating fins two concepts that could have us cruising at Fins at the rear of the plane hypersonic speeds that much sooner. can switch between horizontal and vertical orientations for increased stability and speed control. Rising to new heights Airbus’ Ultra-Rapid Air Vehicle will cruise over twice as high as today’s airliners Take-off Jet engines attached to the fuselage would be used for taxiing and take-off. 024 DID YOU KNOW? Liquid hydrogen fuel, which most hypersonic aircraft will use, is much safer than conventional kerosene fuel The legendary X-15 The history of hypersonic travel was the first vehicle to carry a pilot at It’s been 60 years since a piloted vehicle first travelled faster than Mach 5, hypersonic speeds breaking the hypersonic barrier in a defining moment that showed the true possibility of space travel. The X-15 aircraft not only showed us that we could be carried at hypersonic speed, but taught us about how best to design, control and safely land a vehicle capable of achieving such a feat. The aircraft itself was essentially a rocket/plane hybrid, built to endure temperatures up to 700 degrees Celsius and fly at an altitude of over 100 kilometres, while being blasted through the air by a rocket engine at the rear. Its achievements filled its creators with confidence that they could soon launch a vehicle into space at high speeds and bring it back into the atmosphere safely. Essentially, the X-15 played a role in putting humans on the Moon. © SPL; Imaginactive.org / Ray Mattison / Abhishek Roy; Illustration by Adrian Mann Fuel Almost half of the aircraft’s weight – approximately 400 tons – is its fuel mass. Turbo ramjets A turbojet and a ramjet are No view combined into a single engine Windows that can cope with the heat of that is capable of take-off and hypersonic travel are expensive and heavy. landing, as well as cruising at Passengers may have internal screens hypersonic speeds. linked to viewing cameras instead. Two passengers would be able to Fuel tank Passengers reach the other side of the world in Airbus’ design would under an hour in the Antipode This concept can carry be fuelled by on-board up to 20 passengers liquid hydrogen and along with two pilots. liquid oxygen, as well as ambient oxygen from the air. The Skreemr would make use of an electrical launch system to accelerate to high speeds Retractable turbojet engines Conventional engines are used during take-off and “We could be are then withdrawn into the fuselage, making the bidding farewell to vehicle more streamlined. runways one day” 025 TRANSPORT Rocket power Rockets take over from the jet engines after take-off to Taking tourists to the increase the aircraft’s speed to at least Mach 2.5. upper stratosphere Meet ZEHST, the Zero Emission High- Speed Transport of the future Jet engines Subsonic jet engines are required for take-off and a safe landing. Oxygen tanks Unlike the other ‘air-breathing’ engines, the rockets require a source of stored oxygen for fuel combustion. Liquid hydrogen Two tanks of hydrogen are used to fuel the rockets and ramjets. Lightweight materials To compensate for the weight of multiple engines, the frame must be lightweight yet strong Ramjets enough to endure high levels of When the aircraft’s speed reaches aerodynamic drag. 3,100km/h, air can be ‘rammed’ through the ramjets fast enough for the engines to produce thrust. DID YOU KNOW? Travelling at Mach 5, you could circumnavigate the globe in less than seven hours Suppressing the sonic boom Whether you’re going supersonic or hypersonic, breaking the sound barrier is loud. As a vehicle accelerates, the waves of air pressure being pushed along by the frame begin to merge into one single shock wave. This air can travel at the speed of sound but as a vehicle surpasses this speed, a drastic change in pressure results in a deafening clap – a sonic boom. The sonic boom is one major hurdle for aviation companies to overcome if hypersonic flight is going to be made available commercially. Concorde – the first and only public transport to break the sound barrier – was criticised for its volume and was only permitted to break the sound barrier over the ocean. Like many aerospace issues, it could be NASA NASA and Lockheed Martin’s that comes to the rescue once again. The space Quiet Supersonic Technology agency and its partners at Lockheed Martin are (QueSST) X-plane design will in the process of designing an aircraft with many be a step towards ‘low- lifting surfaces to stop the airwaves from boom’ supersonic travel combining. The result would be a series of small booms rather than one big one – lowering the sound output to that of a normal conversation. Helium tanks Helium is used to pressurise the “Hypersonic travel would propellant tanks, allowing liquid hydrogen to be combusted in change the way we the rocket engines. explore the world” © WIKI Hansueli Krapf ; Reaction Engines; DAVID ILIFF / NJR ZA; NASA; Illustration by Adrian Mann Passenger cabin Up to 100 passengers High altitude can be carried in the To minimise air resistance pressurised cabin. the ZEHST would climb 32km above sea level for its journey – three-times higher than a Boeing 747! Streamlined design The pointed nose and narrow wingspan, reminiscent of Concorde, maximise the aerodynamics of the vehicle. Goodbye long- haul flights Domestic hypersonic travel promises to make the world feel a whole lot smaller Boeing 787 Concorde London to New York flight times ZEHST 1hr 6,180km/h (Mach 5) LONDON 3.5hrs Concorde 1 hr 2,180km/h (Mach 2) Boeing 787 ZEHST 8hrs 920km/h (Mach 0.85) NEW YORK 027 TRANSPORT THE FUTURE OF DRIVING Discover what cutting-edge tech will transform the cars of tomorrow Virtual reality Why VR tech is heading onto the factory floor and into the showroom Automotive manufacturer Audi and tech company ZeroLight are pioneering virtual showrooms omorrow’s driving experience starts in chance to explore cars as if they were actually T the dealership. Showrooms themselves will look different, as rows of cars parked side by side are replaced with empty stages for there in the room. Both the interior and exterior design can be changed, so clients can see which configurations they prefer and what optional customers to explore the latest models through extras might look like. They can even delve virtual reality (VR). Clients will be given under the bonnet and see the inner workings of high-resolution VR headsets, such as an Oculus the engine. Rift or HTC Vive, to provide an immersive 3D and VR will also give companies the chance to 360-degree view of their prospective new car. demonstrate vehicles that are yet to be released, While this might sound futuristic, British tech so customers can explore upcoming models in company ZeroLight is already developing this greater detail than simply browsing a website. system in partnership with Audi to provide a Before cars hit the virtual showroom, virtual showroom that offers customers the manufacturers can use VR to design better and 028 DID YOU KNOW? Running 1,000 of BMW’s virtual ‘crashes’ costs less than a single real-life crash test with a prototype Advanced interface Innovative input methods and ‘infotainment’ systems are changing the in-car experience Simply getting from A to B is no longer monitors where your eyes are looking and enough in the automotive industry. In an tracks your hand gestures. In this system, effort to make arduous long journeys and you will just have to look at the setting you stressful morning commutes more bearable, want to adjust, such as the radio volume or cars will become media hubs. Audi’s air conditioning temperature, then move next-gen virtual dashboard is one such your hand to change it. concept that will transform the driving Volvo is partnering with Ericsson to take Drivers can give commands with experience. This system displays important in-car entertainment to the next level. intuitive gestures in Mercedes- Benz’s F 015 concept information, such as 3D maps, traffic Future Volvo models will come complete information and hazard alerts, in the with both autonomous technology and driver’s field of view on an ultra-thin, high-bandwidth streaming capabilities, high-resolution OLED display. This meaning the driver will be able to relax with multifunctional display is supplemented by their favourite films or TV shows as the car two touchscreen displays on the centre handles the driving. It will even be smart console, which control features such as the enough to take a slightly longer route to your media systems and air conditioning. One destination if the episode you’re watching aim of this system is that it will be able to hasn’t quite finished. learn the driver’s habits and use this information to improve their journeys. For example, if traffic starts to build up on your usual route to work, the system will alert you via a companion smartphone app and advise you to set off early. In Mercedes-Benz’s F 015 concept, the classic dashboard is entirely replaced with a smart Elements of Audi’s next-gen dashboard will be screen that constantly incorporated in some of its 2017 models safer vehicles. At Ford’s Immersion Lab in Michigan, US, VR plays an integral role in the production process. By developing highly detailed virtual models, Ford can evaluate different configurations and designs early on, without having to build physical prototypes. This saves money and allows engineers more creative freedom to explore new design options. © Mercedes-Benz; Audi; Volvo Some manufacturers are also using VR to improve safety. Before BMW even build the first Volvo’s concept allows drivers to sit example of a new model, it will already have back and relax with their favourite been crash tested at least 100 times in all kinds of shows while the car drives itself virtual situations. 029 TRANSPORT Future tech Intelligent on the roads In the coming years, inner-city autos driving will become a whole new experience From data gathering to self-driving, how will cars of the future use information? Enhanced awareness Improved radar and camera Augmented Inspired by swarm behaviour seen in birds, fish systems will make driving head-up displays and insects, Audi is developing swarm safer by alerting drivers to will also be used objects in their blind spots, intelligence systems to improve its autonomous in cars to alert and helping them see around drivers to technologies. In nature, groups of animals can corners at blind junctions. potential hazards appear to move as one, and that’s precisely the principle that Audi wants to transfer to cars on the road to help reduce traffic. By using mobile networks, Audi cars will be able to stay Augmented reality interconnected, gathering and sharing traffic Mechanics and technicians will information with the help of a SIM card (e-SIM) don augmented-reality glasses that is permanently embedded in the car. The to make repairs and fix engine issues more effectively. e-SIM connects the vehicle to a cloud database, which provides information about what lies on the road ahead. Using this information, the car can advise the driver on alternative routes that will successfully avoid congestion or hazards on Pedestrian crossing the road. Swarm intelligence systems are still a Laser projection systems work in progress, but Audi has successfully can shine a zebra crossing demonstrated the principle with small-scale onto the road to let pedestrians cross safely. demonstration models. While many companies are developing self-driving cars, this technology must be thoroughly tested before drivers will be willing to let go of the steering wheel. Volvo’s Drive Me project, due to start next year in Gothenburg, Sweden, will be the world’s first large-scale, long-term autonomous car trial. A fleet of 100 Volvo XC90s will put the company’s most advanced autopilot technologies to the test in the real world. The future of commuting could include flying cars, such as in this concept art Mercedes-Benz’s F 015 concept has laser projectors and LED screens for other road users and pedestrians 030 DID YOU KNOW? As of August 2016, Google’s fleet of 58 cars drive an average of 32,000-40,000 autonomous kilometres per week Driverless trials Autonomous cars will become more and more common on the roads as driverless technology is extensively tested. VR showroom Future showrooms Customers will be able to will allow customers to experience browse different models different vehicles in the virtual world and configurations through virtual reality. DRIVING BY Crowdsourced data Information about road- Swarm intelligence NUMBERS surface damage, such as Information-sharing services 2050 potholes, could be shared will alert drivers to upcoming with maintenance teams to traffic or hazards and advise prioritise repairs. how to avoid them. The date by which all new cars will be fully driverless, according to some predictions 10 Lives saved every 10 years if driverless cars were used worldwide Pothole detection Sensors will enable cars to million detect potholes or other road-surface damage. Jaguar 2.4mn km The distance Google’s testing fleet Land Rover’s concept adjusts of cars have self-driven so far suspension accordingly for passenger comfort. Remote control When faced with narrow spaces, drivers will be able to get out of the car and tell it to park itself via a 453 DAYS smartphone app. The total time the average British commuter spends stuck in traffic during their working life The number 2.6 of crashes per million Drivers can remotely instruct km driven their cars to perform tasks, by humans like locking the doors or turning the heater on, via © Volvo; Audi; Daimler; BMW; Illustration by Nicholas Forder 2 connected apps The number of crashes per million The levels of autonomous driving km driven by autonomous cars What technology needs to be tested before we trust our cars to take full control? Level 0 No autonomy: The driver is fully Level 1 the car has Level 2 Semi-autonomous: Unlinked assistance systems are used, such Level 3 At this level the car can take full Level 4 The car can make some of its own decisions, Level 5 Full autonomy: no steering wheel or £8mn How much Jaguar Land Rover saved between 2008-2010 by using VR in control of the stability control as pilot assist and control for a such as changing controls and no need systems in car development car at all times. and cruise control. braking cooperation. period of time. routes to avoid traffic. for human input. 031 TRANSPORT On board the Dream Chaser With the Space Shuttle in retirement, NASA is looking to the next generation of space planes S ierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser is a nitrous oxide. Its engines are so smaller, more adaptable version of the powerful that, when docked with Space Shuttle and will spend much of its the ISS, Dream Chaser can raise the Compared to the giant Space Shuttles, Dream time going on trips to resupply the International Space Station’s altitude, useful for Chaser is modest in size Space Station (ISS). Unlike the Space Shuttle, avoiding pieces of space debris. Dream Chaser can fly autonomously, Dream Chaser is a fairly modest without a human pilot. Crewed versions will also be spacecraft in terms of size; its wingspan is seven metres, Spacecraft design developed, capable of compared to the 23.8-metre Mark Sirangelo, carrying seven astronauts wingspan of the Space head of Sierra plus cargo. Shuttle. It will be capable of Nevada Once in space, it will carrying over five tons of Corporation be powered by twin cargo into space before Space Systems, hybrid rocket engines, returning to Earth hours tells us more which use two later, landing like an “Dream Chaser is a pilot-automated space plane propellants – one solid, The Dream Chaser will airplane on a runway. that has many similarities to the Space Shuttle. It the other gaseous or be able to return from Expected to first launch is smaller in terms of overall size – it doesn’t have space and land like the huge cargo compartment that the Shuttle did liquid. These are mixed sometime in 2018-2019, there – but it has a similar sized pressurised crew an airplane together and tend to be less will be two versions; the Dream compartment. This means that it can still take up explosive than purely solid rocket Chaser Cargo System sports folding the same number of astronauts (seven) and the same amount of protected cargo in the pressure fuel when they fail. In the case of Dream wings to allow it to fit into the cargo fairing hold as the Shuttle. Chaser, the solid propellant is a rubbery rockets such as the Ariane 5, while the crewed It’s a highly reusable vehicle and, presuming material called ‘hydroxyl-terminated Dream Chaser Space System will launch on an that there’s a mission and rocket, we can launch © Sierra Nevada Corporation each Dream Chaser vehicle potentially five times polybutadiene’, while the gas propellant is Atlas V rocket to carry astronauts to the ISS. a year. We’re planning on having a fleet so that we can fly one while we’re getting the next one What dreams are made of Wing profile Dream Chaser’s ready to fly again. We are expecting our first orbital flight to be in 2018 but we’re probably not going to have any crew on board to begin with.” Introducing one of the most sophisticated space vehicles ever built streamlined shape with upswept wings keeps g-forces to below 1.5 Seven-strong crew Airlock for the entire flight. Although Dream Chaser is The docking hatch allows astronauts capable of flying autonomously, or cargo to be transferred from it can also carry a crew of up to Dream Chaser to the ISS. seven astronauts. Cargo carrier Landing wheels Hybrid rockets Over five tons of cargo for Dream Chaser’s landing The hybrid rocket system resupplying the ISS can be gear allows it to touch uses non-toxic propellants crammed into Dream down on a runway just like for the first time in the Chaser’s hold. an airplane. history of space flight. 032 DID YOU KNOW? Simple hand gestures can be used to activate the Motorrad VISION NEXT 100’s indicator lights while riding The rise of smart If the rider looks down while wearing the visor, a map of their route will appear motorcycles BMW has unveiled a high-tech bike concept that is impossible to topple over redicting a future where most vehicles will reference to the R32, BMW’s first ever motorcycle, equipping them with a P be driverless, BMW hopes to still provide bikers with a thrilling, hands-on ride. To celebrate its centenary year, the company has released in 1923. However, this new upgrade has some rather more sophisticated features on board, including self-balancing technology. If the bike is special visor that acts as a digital companion. If they look straight ahead, symbols suggesting their ideal banking angle and warning unveiled the Motorrad VISION NEXT 100 concept, a about to tip over it will automatically right itself, of any upcoming hazards will appear in their field high-tech bike designed for the digitally connected even when stationary, meaning the rider won’t fall of view, while if they look up, a rear-view function world of the future. off and can dismount without the need to flick out will activate, allowing them to see what’s going on While it may look a bit like something from Tron, a stand. behind. The accompanying suit is also designed to the motorcycle does in fact take inspiration from a Thanks to this safety feature, BMW doesn’t enhance the riding experience, with a neck classic, as the black triangle frame is a subtle foresee a need for riders to wear a helmet, instead section that inflates for support when accelerating. The BMW Motorrad VISION NEXT 100 The bike BMW thinks you’ll be riding three decades from now 1. Flexible frame 3 With no bearings or joints, the entire frame adjusts with a turn of the handlebars, changing the direction of the bike. 4 2. Zero emissions Designed to look like a traditional BMW boxer engine, the fully electric power unit extends outwards when the bike is in motion. 3. Visor display As well as providing wind protection, the visor also 6 features an information display, which can be controlled 1 by the rider’s eye movements. 5 4. Comfortable suit 2 The suit monitors the rider’s body temperature, adjusting the level of heat accordingly, and vibrates to give navigation instructions. 5. Adaptive tyres The variable tread of the tyres automatically adjusts to grip onto any road surface, whatever the conditions. 6. Modern materials Under its matte-black fabric cover, the frame is made from carbon fibre, and so are the seat and wings. More future vehicle concepts BMW has also redesigned three of its cars for the future The motorcycle isn’t the only vehicle BMW has re-imagined for the future. As part of its VISION NEXT 100 exhibition, the company has also designed concepts for three of its car brands: MINI, Rolls Royce and BMW. The idea for the MINI is to have a network of cars available at all times, able to autonomously pick up drivers who can then adjust the car’s appearance, driving characteristics and connectivity to suit their preferences. The Rolls Royce, on the other hand, won’t need a driver at all, as it will be controlled by a virtual personal assistant who can also fulfil your every wish throughout the journey. Customers will be able to create their own customised version of the car, which will be spacious enough for them to stand up inside. © BMW Group The BMW combines the best of both worlds, allowing the driver to take the wheel themselves or hand over control if they want to sit back and relax. 033 TRANSPORT Fuel of The latest concept car from Toyota, the FCV Plus, is powered solely by hydrogen the future How will we power our vehicles when we exhaust Earth’s oil supplies? eports indicate that roughly 1.2 billion which can be recycled. The problem is that photosynthesis – the process used by plants R vehicles occupy our roads, and this number is constantly on the rise. By the year 2035, this figure is expected to reach two getting it into a form where it can be used as fuel requires energy to be spent, unlike oil or natural gas. Hydrogen is also diff icult to store and other organisms to turn sunlight into energy – for commercial use. Recent breakthroughs mean that it’s now possible to billion. As traditional sources of fuel start to and currently, the infrastructure is not in place replicate the precise chemistry in the lab, dwindle and prices keep on rising, it’s to distribute it to petrol stations. Hydrogen which could pave the way for the creation of imperative that we find alternative fuels. power is certainly promising, but while these storable solar fuel. Although there is no shortage of options, we issues remain, its use will be extremely limited. The reality is that in the coming decades, the are still searching for one breakthrough energy Another popular alternative may be electric fuels we have relied on for so long will continue source that can bear the brunt of our vehicles, which use rechargeable batteries to be used, but the hope is that we can reduce requirements. Solar power, biofuels, wind and instead of combustion engines to power motors. our dependence on them. We’ve spent the best ethanol have all been suggested, but among the By 2020, many believe that electric cars will be part of a century building a global economy most viable replacements for petrol and diesel priced similarly to traditionally fuelled around oil so it will take a long time for this to is hydrogen. It’s the most abundant element in vehicles. This has prompted scientists around change. However, the scale of this issue means the universe and is environmentally friendly, the world to look at new methods for producing there is a global effort to develop eco-friendly as burning it produces water and heat, both of electricity. One option is to mimic alternatives that can replace fossil fuels. 034 DID YOU KNOW? On average, the UK uses 46 million litres of petrol and 74 million litres of diesel for road transport per day Evaporation power The moisture mill Learn how scientists have harnessed one of water’s Take a look inside the ingenious natural processes to drive a miniature vehicle evaporation engine Evaporation is a fundamental part of the water cycle, where liquid turns into a gas 1 Evaporation When the water in the chamber walls 2Bacterial spores The tiny tape-mounted spores within the chamber absorb the moisture and 3 Creating torque The lengthened tape creates an imbalance, shifting the centre of due to an increase in temperature or evaporates, it creates a expand, lengthening the tape and mass away from the axis to create humid environment. therefore changing its centre of mass. torque – a force that causes rotation. pressure. Despite being a dominant form of energy transfer on Earth, this huge power source has remained untapped by scientists, until now. Researchers at Columbia University, New York, believe they have made a breakthrough, with the help of bacterial spores. These spores typically exist in dry places, but when they are exposed to moisture they readily absorb it, and then shrink back when they return to a dry environment, where the water evaporates again. The spores stretch and contract like flexing muscles, depending on the presence of water in the air. Scientists realised that this property could be exploited to power a system, and set about developing a device to showcase this. They added spores to small strips of plastic tape and increased the humidity so the spores expanded, lengthening the tape they were mounted on. When the researchers combined many lengths of tape together, they were able to increase the force that this bacterial action created. Using this principle, the experts have managed to create a working vehicle powered by a ‘moisture mill’, which is essentially a plastic wheel with a large quantity of tape-mounted spores around it. Half of the wheel is placed into a humid environment and the other half in a dry environment. As the spores expand when humidity is high and contract when it’s low, a mass imbalance is created on the wheel, causing it to spin. To power a toy car, the scientists simply connected this © Thinkstock spore engine to the wheels via an elastic band and, sure enough, the car moved steadily forward. The number of potential applications The water-absorbing for this technology is vast, but what qualities of bacterial spores can be exploited excites scientists the most is that they can use evaporation to both produce energy 4Spinning wheel As the wheel turns it 5 Water released Once the bacterial as a power source and save water at the same time. It may moves the rubber spores reach the dry air be many years before we fill our vehicles’ band, which rotates they release their water the vehicle’s front and shrink, and the tanks with tap water, but this wheels and propels centre of mass reverts to breakthrough proves that engines the car forward. its original position. powered by evaporation might be more science than fiction. 035 TRANSPORT ‘Breathing’ batteries Inside a New technology could help electric cars go the distance breathing battery See how a lithium-air battery The eff iciency of electric cars is unmatched by Electron flow uses oxygen to generate an The lithium ions and electrical charge their fossil fuelled rivals, but they are held back electrons simultaneously by their limited range. Chemical engineers flow from the anode to from the University of Cambridge believe they the cathode, creating an electric charge that can have overcome this obstacle by devising a power an engine. lithium-oxygen battery that can be recharged more than 2,000 times. These ‘breathing’ batteries harness the energy produced when lithium reacts with oxygen in the air. Like all batteries, they have three basic parts, a positive electrode (the cathode), a negative electrode (the anode) and an electrolyte, which acts as a conducting medium to allow the flow of ions between the electrodes. The key to the new design is a graphene cathode, which is a more resilient material than Lithium ions previously used forms of carbon. This works The lithium anode reacts with oxygen to alongside a new electrolyte, which results in a produce lithium ions. by-product called lithium hydroxide. Instead of coating the anode as in previous designs (which gradually wears down the battery), this by-product decomposes with every charge. With this technology, researchers hope that H2O + O2 Graphene electrode electric cars could be driven for as far as 800 The lithium ions react at kilometres on a single charge. Despite being a Oxygen supply Electrolyte this carbon-based long way from featuring in a Nissan Leaf or a In test models, pure oxygen is The new and improved electrode, producing lithium Tesla, these batteries bring us closer to long- needed, but it is hoped that lithium-air battery electrolyte is hydroxide crystals that eventually oxygen can be made of dimethoxyethane decompose when the distance electric cars than ever before. supplied from the surrounding air. solvent and lithium iodide salt. battery is recharged. Boeing’s eco The ecoDemonstrator 757 With active flow control, Testing the system technology Boeing’s smaller vertical tail provides excellent stability To test the system’s efficiency, and directional control Boeing fitted the tail with numerous instruments to How a tiny tail tweak can Actuators measure the flow of air. make massive fuel savings A series of tiny actuators are located along most of the length of the tail, releasing air A passenger plane such as the Boeing 747 burns through exit nozzles at high speed. around four litres of fuel a second, which Stabiliser equates to 150,000 litres over a ten-hour flight. Exit nozzles When the air is expelled, it creates the With roughly 100,000 commercial flights same side force during take-off and departing each day, airlines are keen to boost landing as a larger vertical tail does. fuel eff iciency by any means possible. Rudder A good way of doing this is to make the plane lighter, which has prompted Boeing to Heat exchanger experiment with the tail design on their planes. Located under the A smaller vertical tail, which has been trialled plane, this sucks in on their ecoDemonstrator 757, has 31 tiny air and sends it to the actuators. devices that blow air directly onto it, known as sweeping jet actuators. These create the same side forces during take-off and landing as a larger tail, while reducing weight and therefore NASA has experimented with a fuel consumption. The ecoDemonstrator 757 has non-stick wing coating to stop trapped made a series of successful test flights. insects from reducing fuel efficiency 036 DID YOU KNOW? The US produces 9 billion kilograms of hydrogen each year, enough to power 30 million cars Hall thruster engines Regular rocket engines work by the principle of Engineers from the Glenn Research Center have Newton’s third law of motion: every action has developed a Hall thruster, a type of ion engine an equal and opposite reaction. By firing exhaust that will use ten times less fuel than a chemical gases out from the rocket engine’s nozzle, a rocket equivalent. It works by electrically reactive force is produced that pushes the rocket charging the propellant (usually xenon gas), in the opposite direction. This method has been which then gets accelerated in an electric field so used since the earliest space flights, but is it is fired out from the engine at high speed, ineff icient and not a feasible method of powering producing thrust. This method of space Fitted with ion thrusters, long-distance trips. propulsion is safe, cost-effective and much more NASA’s Dawn spacecraft was That’s why NASA are working on a propulsion efficient; it is hoped that Hall thrusters will propel able to visit the giant asteroid system that could overcome these problems. an asteroid-redirect mission in the 2020s. Vesta, and is currently at Ceres “The Hall thruster will use ten times less fuel than a chemical rocket equivalent” The Hall thruster will enable spacecraft to travel faster and further Hybrid train technology By combining a conventional diesel engine with an ©NASA Langley/David C.Bowman/Dominic Hart/JPL Caltech; Rolls-Royce electric drive system, engineers from Rolls-Royce believe they can make trains more efficient. The Hybrid PowerPack includes the standard diesel engine and cooling system, but is also fitted with an additional electric propulsion module and an energy storage system. The latter produces a type of regenerative braking, which was first used in Formula 1 cars. The kinetic energy created when the train is slowed down can be recovered by an electric motor, and then stored in batteries to be used later, rather than being wasted. This is particularly useful for trains that frequently stop and start during their journey. The Hybrid PowerPack was In the first trials carried out in early 2015, this hybrid extensively tested over six technology reduced fuel consumption by 15 per cent weeks, during which the train travelled 2,300km compared to a standard diesel journey. 037 TRANSPORT Take a ride in a personal submarine Explore the depths in the DeepFlight Dragon that anyone can pilot S ubmarines are no longer reserved for naval warfare and fictional spies, as DeepFlight’s new craft has made it easy for anyone to travel beneath the waves. The Dragon is a cross between a submarine and quadcopter, with six The two-seater sub rotating thrusters that allow it to fly and hover can be controlled by underwater. The simple controls mean it operates either the front or just like a drone too, so anyone can pilot it without back passenger needing lengthy training. The onboard DeepFlight Dive Manager monitors depth control, battery consumption and oxygen flow, so all you need to do is set the dive limit and fly. The lithium-iron-phosphate battery allows you to cruise for up to six hours between charges and operates quietly so you can sneak up on any marine wildlife. You and your passenger will be protected by the carbon composite chassis and pressurised cabin, and if you get into trouble, the sub’s positive buoyancy will cause it to automatically float back to the surface. You don’t need much know-how to own a Dragon, but you do need deep pockets. The craft is available for an eye-watering £1 million ($1.5 million), but the good news is that it will fit perfectly on your yacht. 038 GLOBAL EYE DID YOU KNOW? Not only is the Dragon safe to use around wildlife, it is also environmentally friendly Simple controls make the Dragon very easy to operate with hardly any training The specs Dimensions: 5 x 1.9 x 1.1 metres Weight: 1,800 kilograms Operating depth: 120 metres Cruising speed: 4 knots (7.4km/h) Payload: 250 kilograms The Dragon is the smallest and lightest personal submarine on the market 039 TRANSPORT NEXT-GEN EMERGENCY VEHICLES We reveal the latest tech to help pursue lawbreakers, extinguish infernos and save lives aintaining law and order can be a access blazing infernos. Ambulances are also before. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are M tough test so having top-notch technology to back you up is essential. Both the current and upcoming generation of being revamped with the aim to kit out the vehicles with tools and apparatus that will be on par with the best a hospital can provide. Saving already making an impact in the world of policing, allowing for new and effective ways of tracking offenders from the skies. The Stealth emergency vehicles contain state-of-the-art kit lives on the scene of an incident could become motorcycle is another vehicle that moves away that performs a variety of functions, whether the norm in the near future. from the traditional methods of policing by aiding in the pursuit of criminals, dampening Vehicles such as the Striker put eff iciency and accessing both crowded areas and off-road flames or preserving life. quality above everything else, while in Dubai locations with ease. From unmanned drones, to futuristic police supercars are seen as the way forward. All of the emergency departments are finding ambulances and high performance police In the United Arab Emirates’ largest city, ways to make the daily routine safer, simpler and Interceptors, the technology at the disposal of everything is larger than life, and the police more efficient. To see just how these new vehicles the emergency services is extremely Lambos and Ferraris you see roaming the will revolutionise public safety, How It Works is sophisticated. Take the Oshkosh Striker fire streets are no different. getting under the bonnet of the emerging cars, engine, for example, which can pierce up to 142 Today’s emergency services are also embracing trucks and bikes available to the emergency centimetres (56 inches) of metal in order to less typical ways of maintaining order than services. The future is now. 040 DID YOU KNOW? The ambulance size and design we see today only began in the 1970s. Before, ambulances were repurposed cars INTERCEPTING POWER Inside an ambulance How the ambulances of the world are the safest and best equipped they’ve ever been The role of an ambulance isn’t just to transport have also been improved to allow off-road routes Despite all the modern upgrades, reaching the patients to hospital. Now, the vehicle must be to be taken if there is congestion on the journey hospital in the quickest time is still the key capable of accessing remote areas and treating to the hospital. The LifeBot 5 is one device that objective. Today’s vehicles come complete with a patients effectively on the go. Paramedics have has taken mobile healthcare that step further. device that can change red traffic lights to green the equipment to assess and treat the injured on Developed by the US Army, its motto is ‘saving at certain intersections and use the best GPS and the scene and while the vehicle is on the road. lives in real-time’ and the telemedicine system mapping systems available. These aids will This gives the patient the best chance of survival comes equipped with a live link to a doctor in the prevent the motorist from driving recklessly and even before entering the hospital ward. nearest hospital. This allows the hospital to reduces shake and vibration from the road. This Current ambulances come fully loaded with make more accurate assessments of the patient’s will enable more intricate and efficient defibrillators and can administrate oxygen and condition and to prepare the ward for any treatments to be undertaken during the way to monitor the heart. The wheels and suspension surgery that may be required. the hospital. Communication The modern ambulance Ambulance staff communicate within the Lights The medicines and equipment that vehicle via hands-free audio links and panic The bright flashing lights paramedics have at their disposal buttons are fitted in case of emergency. and piercing siren of an ambulance alert other drivers and pedestrians Medical supplies to its presence so they All modern ambulances must can quickly get out of contain everything a patient the way could need on a journey, from medicine to defibrillators to breathing apparatus. Wireless Interior medical The surfaces inside equipment an ambulance are Treatment carried out easy to clean for in the ambulance is greater control of recorded to help infection and spillage. medics operate accurately while on the road to the hospital. Stretcher Stretchers are designed to Computer comfortably system transport the A ‘black box’ is patient from the installed on modern scene to hospital ambulances to and can be record the driver’s wheeled or carried. speed, handling, signalling and overall Chassis Seating and safety belts driving safety. Modern chassis are constructed be both Paramedics now have specially designed light and manoeuvrable by using a lining seatbelts that allow them to treat the of felt to dampen vibrations. patient while safely restrained. Law enforcement from the sky: Meet the police drones UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles have an alternative viewpoint so they can now spread their wings to the world of respond to a distress call more efficiently policing. Acting as the eye in the sky for and study evidence and forensics in more police forces the world over, drones such as detail. With thermal-imaging capabilities, the Qube are rapidly becoming more and the Qube can be sent ahead to seek out more important. Ready for flight in less criminals without putting lives at risk. UAVs than five minutes, the Qube can be usually operate at an altitude of between dispatched quickly to track the 30 and 150 metres (100 and 500 feet) but whereabouts of a getaway vehicle or scout can also come closer to the ground and be ahead prior to a raid or search. The utilised as a crowd-control device or in bird’s-eye view of a drone will give officers bomb disposal. 041 TRANSPORT Future police cars Inside the Interceptor Discover the tech that makes the Interceptor the way forward for police cars Meet the cars that will become part of an effective urban pursuit force As well as looking sleek from the outside, the turbo lag, meaning there is no hesitation when Interceptor is packed with state-of-the-art responding to an emergency call. This is part technology. The driver and passengers are of a high-pressure direct-injection fuel system protected by the sturdy Ford SPACE (Side that makes the award-winning Ford 3.5-litre Personal Safety Cooling system System An optimal amount of air Protection And Cabin Enhancement), which is EcoBoost engine as efficient as possible while Sensors operate the flows through the car so both tough and comfortable. This system producing 365 horsepower (272 kilowatts). air bags so they can it can cope with the heat comes complete with a modern type of air bag All this power would be pointless if it wasn’t determine the size of a generated during a collision and typical day. that deploys between the passenger’s head for the all-wheel-drive system (AWD) that distinguish between and the car window to give crucial protection upholds the Interceptor’s handling at high firefights and crashes. in rollover collisions. speeds and in tough corners. Most cars in The Interceptor comes in two models: Sedan today’s market boast good power and and Utility. Both are formidable adversaries to handling, so what does the Interceptor have criminal activity with the Utility the slightly that civilian cars don’t? The answer lies in the larger model that can carry more equipment 220-amp alternator on board. Essentially a and technology for longer, drawn-out pursuits. huge power pack within the vehicle, it helps Both vehicles’ drivetrain is ideally suited to power all the gizmos an officer will require 24-hour policing. The two turbochargers on in a day’s policing, including radios, board maximise acceleration and minimise computers, video cameras and radar. Engine Wheels The Ford Interceptor aims Using Ford’s own EcoBoost An Interceptor is to meet the increasing technology, the car’s 3.5l V6 designed to maintain law demand for power and engine produces 365bhp and order 24 hours a day safety for law- (272kW) and has two with its high strength enforcement vehicles turbochargers to prevent lag. five-spoke steel wheels. 042 DID YOU KNOW? The Interceptor uses tethers to strengthen door hinges when they need to be flung open in a chase or firefight Dubai’s supercar cops Green policing Whether it’s the tallest building in the world or an artificial on two wheels archipelago shaped like a palm tree, Dubai doesn’t trade in If an Interceptor isn’t available, you half measures. The police force is no different, with its can always hop on a motorcycle. As supercars the envy of both petrolheads and other cops adept off road as it is on the streets, around the world. The fleet has everything from Lamborghini the Zero SP is quiet and exhaust Aventadors to Bugatti Veyrons and Bentley Continentals. The free. Its electric powertrain gives it Lamborghini is particularly impressive, boasting a top speed a top speed of 158 kilometres (98 of 350 kilometres (217 miles) per hour in its 6.5-litre V12 engine. miles) per hour and a range of 286 The cars are as much of a tourist attraction as they are a kilometres (178 miles) and it can law-enforcement vehicle. Dubai isn’t exactly a global hotbed recharge anywhere with a for street crime and many onlookers feel it is just a publicity connection to the main grid. Its stunt for the 2020 World Expo, which the city will host. silence and lack of emissions mean However, if a happy medium between performance and the motorcycle can be used in tight reliability can be found, the police cars of the future may not situations such as compact city be all that different to the ones we currently see patrolling Lawbreakers will have to pack some serious speed to out run Dubai’s police force! streets and dense pedestrian areas. this modern city’s streets. Rather than go in all guns blazing, silent patrols offer an alternative solution to security and law enforcement. Its lightweight chassis and regenerative braking make it extremely manoeuvrable, allowing the bike to be inconspicuous and have the element of surprise when on the trail of a suspect. The Zero SP promotes a new way of policing that can undertake patrols effectively while being environmentally friendly at the same time. AWD System The all-wheel-drive system is greener than ever with a 20 per cent reduction in fuel consumption over the 2011 model. The Zero SP is developed by Zero Motorcycles and promises an electric, exhaust-free way of policing Braking system Doors The heavy-duty The ceramic ballistic front braking system has door panels help to protect specially designed the driver and front callipers that create an passenger by shielding effective cooling them from bullets. system on the wheels. 043 TRANSPORT Cameras Fire The Oshkosh Striker US company Oshkosh has packed all its technological expertise into this To concentrate the water cannons on the epicentre of a fire, infrared cameras engines monster of a fire engine are used from the safety of the cabin. The Oshkosh Striker Hull-piercing cannon There is the option to equip he Oshkosh is a rough, tough fire with a 142cm (56in) long metal truck coming to an “Snozzle” to puncture the hull, allowing the foam to spray into the aircraft cabin. airport near you Aviation fuel is extremely flammable so it is essential that a top-of-the-range fi re engine is always on hand to fight the flames at airports across the globe. Enter the Oshkosh Striker. First produced in 2001, the vehicle had a a bit of a revamp in 2010 and has now become the leading light in its class. Its combination of Cab Five people can clamber in flame- smothering foam and quick but the Striker is so simple acceleration make it a must at to use that it can be airports where smoke can choke a operated by one person. plane cabin in minutes. It has become so popular that it is used as the response vehicle of choice for US Air Force bases and even the White House. The Striker’s powerful foam and water cannons and a rapid response time make it a powerful all-round fi refighting machine. To achieve maximum acceleration, engineers removed unnecessary parts and replaced heavy materials with lighter ones for more speed. Small but vital additions such as all-wheel suspension, a high reach extendable turret and an intercooled engine make it a match for the strongest of infernos. Its simple control system combined with its high-visibility windows make it easy to run and Foaming service so the vehicle is always agent Firefighter available to fight fi re. The Striker comes protection equipped with The crew inside There are three different models 1,590l (420ga) of are well of Striker: the 4x4, 6x6 and 8x8. foaming agent and protected by the Each one is larger and better 11,356l (3,000ga) glass windscreen of water to that offers equipped than the last, but all can extinguish the panoramic views be deployed to race down the toughest fires. of huge infernos. runway in the face of an airport fi re. With extra terminals springing up at airports Undertruck nozzles worldwide and a constant stream Fuel spills are a common of planes travelling through them, issue in airports so six undertruck nozzles have the Striker has never been in been attached to spray higher demand. foam 360 degrees. 044 DID YOU KNOW? Aviation fuel burns at a scorching 1,370°C (2,500°F) so fires can quickly engulf whole buildings with thick smoke Chemical tank As well as foam, the Striker holds high Hop on the amounts of potassium bicarbonate to prevent electric, exhaust- oxidising reactions in the fire. free police motorcycle Interview with Scot Harden, VP of Global Marketing for Zero Motorcycles What was the inspiration behind Zero? Our mission is to transform two-wheeled recreation and transportation through our innovative, high-tech motorcycles. We aspire to provide all the attributes you normally expect from the motorcycling experience, the sense of adventure, thrill, freedom and personal fulfilment without any of the hassles associated with motorcycles. No heat, no vibration, no emissions and no sound. How will police forces around the world utilise it in their fleets? Over 50 agencies in the US are using Zero motorcycles as well as several high-profile international police/security organisations, including Hong Kong and Colombia. Our motorcycles are used for routine patrol, crowd control, event and private security efforts. The stealth nature of our products allows authorities to arrive on the scene of criminal activity unannounced and to patrol areas otherwise inaccessible. The low maintenance costs provides additional motivation to adopt our products. Currently Zero-fleet motorcycles are being used by police, military, university campus, fire departments and private security forces. What technology is used in the Zero? We use a proprietary drive train that has been developed internally by Zero and features the most energy-dense battery system available today. Our ZForce powertrain consists of three main components; the motor, battery and © Ford; Zero Motorcycles; Alex MacNaughton Photography Limited/Rex Features; Wildman51; Alex Pang: AeroVironment, Inc controller. Battery technology is based on lithium-ion chemistry. Lightweight chassis Engine It may weigh 44 tons, but the The V8 engine powers both the Oshkosh doesn’t hang about, as it drivetrain and the cannons and is constructed out of custom- uses computers to adjust the designed light materials. power to different situations. 045 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT 078 Education transformed 062 The future of cinema 068 How will we shop? 046 082 48 Virtual reality Virtual reality isn’t just for gaming anymore The Martin Jetpack 56 Future of food What needs to be done to 3D print a pizza? 62 Future of cinema How will theatres adapt to keep us entertained? 68 How will we shop? Shops will become more high tech to match online shopping 72 Travel 2050 Discover what your holiday will look like in the year 2025 82 The Martin Jetpack This private jetpack will be the answer to your commute 83 Flexible future of smartphones 072 Travel 2025 Roll up your smartphone and simply put it in your pocket! 048 Virtual reality 047 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT From training cto r s to p lan ning do ita r y o p s, discover mil to how VR is set rld change the wo 048 DID YOU KNOW? Jack White has an app that plays a 360-degree video of one of his gigs when viewed using Google Cardboard his is the year when virtual reality T changes life as we know it. That’s according to research from Deloitte, which predicts sales to reach $1 billion (£700 Predicted uses of VR by million) in 2016 when the Oculus Rift and headsets from Sony, HTC and PlayStation are the year 2025 finally released. “Head-mounted displays are going to be like toasters,” says Dr Albert ‘Skip’ Rizzo, Director of Engineering Gaming Virtual reality can Don’t just play as a Medical Virtual Reality at the University of bring ideas to life, character – be the Southern California’s Institute for Creative helping engineers character, as VR improve their transports you into Technologies. “You might not use it every day but designs before they a variety of everybody’s going to have one.” Whether you enter production. gaming worlds. want to step inside the video games you play, or explore far-flung places from the comfort of your sofa, VR is set to usher in an entirely new era of home entertainment. For some people though, VR is already drastically changing day-to-day life, as the Military Entering virtual technology has a wide range of uses that extend combat zones is far beyond gaming. From performing remote helping to prepare surgeries and treating medical conditions, to soldiers for real-life military operations. training soldiers and planning military operations, hundreds of groundbreaking applications are currently being explored. But while this tech is getting most of us excited, there are some that are left feeling $1.4bn cybersick. The symptoms are similar to motion sickness and it’s caused by a mismatch of $4.7bn sensory inputs. The brain expects things to be in $11.6bn “Hundreds of $5.1bn groundbreaking applications for VR are currently being explored” Education $0.7bn Real estate Video Live events sync, but in a simulated scenario, you observe $2.6bn entertainment $4.1bn movement – like the rickety track of a Retail $3.2bn © SPL rollercoaster – but you don’t feel it. It’s the $1.6bn opposite of traditional motion sickness, which Space exploration occurs when you feel movement in your inner The next giant leap for mankind is set ear, but you don’t see it. The result is the same to be virtual, as VR helps us explore new worlds beyond our own. though, and it’s a big obstacle to making virtual the new reality. Receiving feedback other than visuals and sound is another issue, as it is difficult to recreate a sense of touch that enables you to fully interact with the world around you. On top of this, virtual reality is currently a solitary experience, as others cannot share what you’re viewing Medical through the headset. However, with developers From assisting already working on ingenious solutions, such as surgeons to treating haptic feedback gloves, wireless tracking post-traumatic stress disorder, VR is technology and programmes that can create already helping to avatars of your friends, the virtual future is set to save lives. be one of endless possibilities. 049 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT Comfortable design The padded eyepiece and adjustable head strap enable you to wear the headset for long periods. How does VR work? The kit that transports you into virtual worlds Several mobile headsets that require your smartphone to work are already available, but it is the high-end connected kits that will really show off what VR can do. The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are the current front-runners, with the former 3D audio Built-in headphones create 3D already available to pre-order for around $600 surround-sound audio to help make (£425) and expected to start shipping in March. the virtual environment feel even These headsets feature built-in displays, are more realistic. Adjustable lenses The headset’s lenses can be powered via a cable and require external sensor adjusted to suit your eyesight, systems to track your movements. enabling you to use it even if you’re wearing glasses. Tricking the brain Head trackers Sensors including a How do VR headsets fool you into gyroscope, accelerometer thinking virtual worlds are real? and magnetometer track the position of your head so the virtual world can be Stereoscopic display rendered appropriately. VR headsets use dual lenses or a split-screen display to put a slightly different image in front of each eye, recreating your normal stereoscopic vision. Total immersion Motion tracking The headset blocks out Built-in accelerometers any other light, and and gyroscopes, or headphones can be external sensors, work out worn to block out the position of your head sound, eliminating any so the image can be distractions from the adjusted accordingly as real world. you look around. Normal vision Smooth footage When you see the world, each The VR footage needs to refresh eye records the scene from a at a high frame rate to avoid any slightly different angle and your noticeable flickering that could brain puts the two views together leave you feeling nauseous. to create one 3D image. 050 DID YOU KNOW? Social media giant Facebook bought Oculus Rift for $2 billion (£1.3 billion) in 2014 Opening Virtual versus augmented reality the Rift How does the Oculus Microsoft’s HoloLens may look like a VR objects in front of you. For example, you can headset, but it is in fact an augmented reality transform your living room into a Minecraft headset put you inside device. Rather then cutting you off from the universe, or project video chat conversations the game? real world to immerse you in a virtual one, the onto your bedroom wall. What’s more, the translucent screens that sit in front of your HoloLens is completely wireless, as all of the eyes overlay virtual elements onto what you computing power is built into the headset. This already see. means they you can wear them like a regular External sensor Forward-facing cameras and sensors on the pair of glasses as you walk around. A small infrared sensor sits headset analyse your surroundings so that the in front of you and tracks 3D holograms can be superimposed onto the Microsoft’s HoloLens is infrared LEDs on the headset much more than a virtual to work out where you are. reality headset High-resolution display The 5.7-inch OLED screen is taken from the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and sits a few inches in front of your eyes. Motherboard Unlike on previous Oculus models, the chip that controls the display interface is built in instead of being located in an external control box. “A split-screen display puts a slightly different image in front of each eye” 051 DID YOU KNOW? The British Army is attracting new recruits by giving them a taster of army life using VR headsets On the battlefield Forget Call Of Duty – how can virtual reality revolutionise real-life military operations? Military organisations are often among the first to adopt the latest technological innovations and virtual reality is no exception. There are many potential applications for VR in combat, but British engineers from BAE Systems are working on some truly groundbreaking concepts. They are planning to create a ‘mixed reality’, using headsets to overlay virtual images, video feeds, objects and avatars onto footage of the operator’s actual surroundings, which are recorded by a front-facing camera. One use for this is in developing a portable A portable command centre that can be transported in a command centre briefcase and set up anywhere. The user would would let military The Virtusphere lets simply put on a headset and interactive gloves, and personnel manage soldiers move freely in emergencies from a virtual battlefield be able to monitor situations anywhere in the anywhere in the world environment world. This would enable them to direct troops and even bring in artificially intelligent avatars to provide updates and advice. Another use for mixed Step into the Cybersphere reality is the ‘wearable cockpit’, a headset that The hamster ball for humans trains soldiers for battle overlays virtual displays onto the pilot’s real-time view, enabling them to customise controls based on their own preferences and mission objectives. 2 As well as assisting soldiers when they are in battle, VR can also be used to train them before they get there. Headsets can be used to simulate a real-life combat zone, which can be experienced from a safe, controlled environment, keeping the 1 soldier out of harm’s way. Of course, staying stationary during training isn’t ideal, so a variety of devices have been designed to give soldiers complete freedom of movement in virtual environments. The Virtusphere is a hollow ball on wheels, which 3 rotates in any direction as the person moves inside. Sensors communicate the user’s movements to their VR headset, so their view can be updated accordingly. Alternatively, the Cybersphere is another human-sized hamster-ball, which doesn’t even need a headset to create a virtual battlefield. BAE Systems’ wearable cockpit overlays the pilot’s view with useful graphics 5 4 1 Freedom of 2 Rolling 3 A second 4 Motion 5 Wrap- movement around sphere tracking around view A hollow, As the user walks, The movement of Rotation sensors Images of a virtual translucent sphere runs or crawls, the large sphere is record the world are projected measuring 3.5 they cause the transferred to a movements of the onto the interior metres in diameter sphere to rotate, smaller sphere; smaller sphere to walls of the sphere, sits on a cushion of although the spring-loaded update the images so the user inside air, which allows it structure itself supports connect that are then seen does not need to to rotate freely. remains stationary. the two parts. by the user. wear a headset. © SPL 053 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT Virtual treatments Is VR good for your health? At the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, Dr Albert ‘Skip’ Rizzo The groundbreaking applications in healthcare and his team are using virtual reality for a number of game-changing In a recent report about the growth of virtual and control a robotic arm that is capable of making clinical purposes. We spoke to him about their amazing work… augmented reality, investment banking firm smaller, more delicate movements than human Goldman Sachs estimates that the industry will be hands could ever manage, plus it enables them to How are you using VR to treat post-traumatic worth $80 billion by the year 2025. It also predicts operate on a patient remotely from an entirely stress disorder (PTSD)? One of the typical treatments for PTSD is that, aside from video games, healthcare will be separate location. prolonged exposure therapy. You ask the person to one of the biggest applications for the technology. There is also a wide range of applications for close their eyes and imagine the trauma that they Already, VR is being used to train surgeons, which virtual reality can be used to treat patients went through as if it’s happening right then and get them to describe it to you. By doing that allowing them to practise complex procedures on a directly. For example, VR can enable people with repetitively in a safe and supportive environment, virtual patient before they get to the real thing, and phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder to face eventually the anxiety that it provokes in them it can even be used to conduct robotic surgeries too. their fears in a virtual world, in order to help diminishes. It sounds kind of counterintuitive at first but there’s actually quite a lot of research to Wearing a head-mounted display, the surgeon can combat them in the real one. support this. What we do with VR is simply to deliver this previous imagination-only approach in an immersive virtual reality simulation. We have developed 14 different virtual worlds that represent a diverse range of experiences, and the clinician is able to adjust them in real-time, for example to change the time of day or introduce sound effects. The patient does exactly what they would do in traditional exposure therapy, but the clinician then tries to mimic their experience in the simulation to enhance the effects. What other clinical VR projects are you working on? One project is building a job interview training system for people with high-functioning autism – people that are very bright but have a difficult time with social interaction. We’ve built a simulation that has six different job interviewers, that can be set at three different levels, from a soft touch, nice interviewer to a more hostile interviewer that puts you ill-at-ease, giving them the opportunity to practise. We’ve also made virtual patients that give clinicians an opportunity to essentially mess up with a digital character before they get to a live one. Are there limitations of the tech in this field? The limitations right now have really diminished. I started in this game back in the early 90s, when it required a $200,000 computer, and you had bulky head-mounted displays with low resolution, limited Education field of view, poor tracking and primitive graphics. There was a network of people that wanted to do this work, but it was challenging because the technology really sucked. Discover how VR can But now the technology has finally caught up with the vision. Computing power has consistently really bring lessons to life gotten better and faster, which is needed for good rendering, and of course the games industry has Imagine being able to visit outer space or walk driven advances in graphic development that are with dinosaurs instead of just reading about them phenomenal. So the limits right now are the limits in a textbook. Virtual reality could transform the of our imagination and the funding to evolve these applications and test them in a consistent way. way subjects are taught in the classroom, and one company is already developing a library of Dr Rizzo uses virtual reality simulations to treat post-traumatic stress disorder experiences that can educate students of all ages. “Virtual reality offers a new way to view the world,” says David Whelan, CEO of Immersive VR Education. “For the first time in humanity we can walk a mile in other people’s shoes.” The Apollo 11 experience, for example, lets you step onto the Moon as Neil Armstrong. “This is much more powerful than reading about the moon landing in a book,” he adds. “Virtual reality has the potential Virtual reality can enable students to to revolutionise education in the same way that experience events from history and reading and writing did thousands of years ago.” impossible-to-visit places 054 DID YOU KNOW? VR could keep astronauts from feeling homesick on long space missions by providing virtual Earth experiences Virtual reality helps astronauts train for life and Virtual work in space world Stereoscopic tech will touch almost every industry Archaeology VR headsets enable archaeologists to walk around places as they would have appeared in the past, giving them a better understanding of what life was really like there. They also make it possible to see ancient sites that are Space exploration otherwise too remote, dangerous or fragile to visit in person. A new way to work in space and tour the Solar System Virtual reality has already become a crucial part of NASA’s Robonaut instead, which can then mimic Crime astronaut training, enabling them to practise its operator’s movements to perform tasks just like solving Based on factual data spacewalks in a virtual environment before doing a human. Virtual reality also makes it possible to and photographs, 3D them for real, and is even being used once they get explore other planets from the safety of Earth, as reconstructions of crime scenes can be into space. A Microsoft HoloLens onboard the NASA scientists can step into images taken by the created and explored International Space Station enables ground Curiosity Rover to walk on Mars for the first time. using head-mounted operators to see through the eyes of the astronauts displays. This enables and provide real-time guidance, as well as project “Ground operators can investigators and even juries to examine the helpful holographic illustrations onto their view. For tasks that astronauts are not able to do see through the eyes scene in great detail without contaminating themselves, a head-mounted display enables of astronauts and give any evidence, helping them to deduce what operators on the ground to see through the eyes of real-time guidance” may have happened. Visualising designs in Sport Engineering 3D using virtual reality As well as creating a more immersive way to watch sporting When designing a new product, it’s difficult to all angles. For example, car manufacturers can events at home, get a sense of what the finished item will be sit inside the design of a new vehicle to make virtual reality can like from 2D illustrations. With virtual reality, sure it looks and feels right before they build also be used to improve the athletes’ designers and engineers can use 3D modelling the real thing. Any tweaks can easily be made performance. While to create virtual prototypes of ideas, and use a in the 3D design, rather than creating a new training in a virtual head-mounted display to examine them from prototype from scratch. simulation, their body movements can be monitored in real-time, providing useful feedback to improve their game and help them avoid injury. Tourism Before you book your next holiday, your travel agent may be able to give you a taster of your destination using Microsoft virtual reality. HoloLens will Popping on a headset enable engineers will transport you to far to view and away places, and even interact with their let you visit locations © SPL; Alamy designs in 3D it’s not possible, or too expensive, to travel to in real life. 055 DID YOU KNOW? Producing 500g (1lb) of beef uses 2,000 times as much water as producing the same amount of cricket meat Next, your android waiter 2.0 will bring over the crop fertilisers, to the carbon dioxide generated as Of course, one simple solution to the problem is mouth-watering main course; a meaty burger the produce is transported around the world, these to eat less meat, but for a mostly carnivorous global that has been grown in a Petri dish, garnished gases are trapping heat in the atmosphere and population that gets through around 285 million with crisp lettuce freshly picked from an gradually warming the surface. In turn, the tons of the stuff each year, this idea is unlikely to underground farm and juicy tomato that has changing climate makes it difficult to grow more catch on. Therefore, tasty alternatives need to be been genetically modified to contain extra crops, and so scientists will need to step in more found, and our idea of what we consider to be meat vitamins. Then, if you still have room for dessert, and more to help. By genetically modifying the may need to change too. For example, the beef and you’ll be able to choose from a range of sweet plants we grow, not only can the more vulnerable chicken in your burgers and burritos could soon be treats that have been designed on a computer species be made able to withstand harsher, swapped for crickets and locusts, or perhaps be and printed directly onto the plate. inhospitable environments, but the hardier grown in a lab instead of on a farm. These unconventional dishes may seem species that can survive could also be made more In fact, even traditional farms as we know bizarre and perhaps stomach-churning to us nutritious to ensure we all get the vitamins and them are likely to look completely different in now, but in the future they could help to solve a minerals we need. just a few decades time. Gone will be the days of global food crisis. Over the next 35 years, the Although growing fruit and vegetables farmers having to drive tractors and milk the world’s population is expected to exceed nine generates a great deal of greenhouse gas, it is cows themselves, as autonomous machines are billion, meaning an extra two billion hungry livestock production that is the biggest already starting to take over and make the mouths to feed. To fulfil this demand, the contributor to global emissions. It is estimated industry more efficient. amount of food we grow will need to increase by that producing one 230-gram (half-pound) Once these eco-friendly and sustainable foods 70 per cent, but with most of the planet’s hamburger generates the same amount of have been harvested, we might not recognise the farmland already being used, and billions of its greenhouse gas as driving a typical passenger car products that hit the shelves. Instead of packets inhabitants already undernourished, this is for 16 kilometres (ten miles). Among these gasses and tins, your local supermarket will sell going to be a major challenge. is methane, which is about 25 times more effective ingredients in cartridges that you can load into Today’s global food industry is already at warming the planet than carbon dioxide. As your 3D printer at home. Then, with a press of a unsustainable, with agriculture responsible for demand for meat grows, so does the list of button, you can sit back and relax while the almost a third of all human-caused greenhouse negative consequences for our planet, so machine builds a delicious dish – layer by layer – gas emissions. From the nitrous oxide given off by something needs to be done very soon. that is sure to impress your dinner party guests. Pizza printing 3D-printed meals Protein mix Dough mix How 3D printers can cook Tomato Water up a margherita at the 3D printing is already being used to create car parts, clothes and Oil touch of a button even prosthetics, but next on the agenda is your dinner. You will soon be able to make a meal from scratch simply by choosing a recipe and clicking print. 3D food printers that can produce intricate edible designs from sugar and chocolate already exist, but the Foodini, a 3D printer that can create a wide range of both savoury and sweet foods, is due to go on sale in 2016. Once you select your desired recipe, Foodini will tell you which ingredients to place into its food capsules, then it will start printing your dish in layers until it is ready for you to cook in the oven or pan. It can create crackers, pizzas, veggie burgers and even ravioli, allowing Tomato sauce you to keep track of exactly what goes into your meal. As well as 1Mixing the ingredients benefiting you at home, 3D printing food could also help to Protein Dough The powdered dough mix, improve the quality and variety of meals available for astronauts tomato and protein mix are on long duration space missions. A NASA-funded project has combined with oil and water to developed a machine that can print a pizza from dried create the basic ingredients. ingredients with a 30-year shelf life, meaning it could someday feature on a menu on Mars. 4Top with cheese A protein mixture that resembles cheese is then layered on to create the finished pizza. 3Add the sauce The tomato sauce is the next layer to be added through the spray valve system. © Corbis; Dreamstime 2Print the base The dough is printed first, with the wet mixture Beijing Hesion 3D Technology is developing a pancake-printing layered directly onto a hot machine, to satisfy those creative sweet treat cravings plate and cooked. 057 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT Lab-grown meat Discover how scientists can create burgers without harming cows How to Global demand for meat is expected to increase build a by more than two-thirds in the next 40 years, and we are already struggling to cope. Current burger methods for producing meat are not very sustainable, as huge amounts of land and other resources are needed to rear livestock. As these assets get harder to come by, the price of meat will “Cells taken from continue to rise, meaning that it could soon just one cow become an unaffordable luxury. The meat industry is also having a negative environmental could produce 175 impact on the planet, with the animals releasing million burgers” huge amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Many scientists believe the solution to this looming problem is cultured meat grown in the lab, and a team from Maastricht University in the Netherlands has already perfected the technique. By extracting stem cells from a living cow they have been able to grow muscle tissue and turn it into a burger that tastes a lot like the real thing. The cells taken from just one cow could produce 175 million burgers, which would normally require meat from 440,000 cows; better still, the animal remains unharmed. It’s not just beef that can be grown this way either, as the method can easily be replicated to create chicken, pork and other meats too. Before you start planning your lab-grown barbecue though, scientists believe it could be another ten to 20 years before the meat becomes commercially available. It currently costs around €250,000 (£185,000 or $280,000) to produce a single burger, but as the method is refined, cultured meat could become cheaper than the conventional kind grown on farms by 2035. The cheese and meat in an Impossible Burger are made entirely from plants Turning plants into beef If a lab-grown burger doesn’t get your mouth vitamins and fats – also from plants – to watering, then maybe one made entirely from create the three main components of meat; plants will. Impossible Foods has discovered a muscle, connective tissue and fat. When way to make meat and cheese without these are combined in the right proportions, animals, yet still promise that it will ‘delight they form a burger that looks, tastes and and nourish the most discerning meat lover’. smells just like ground beef. The Impossible From plants such as greens, grains and Burgers are already available in four beans, they extract proteins that have a restaurants in the US, and will be followed meaty texture, flavour or aroma. The by a range of other meats and dairy proteins are then mixed with amino acids, products, all made entirely from plants. 058 DID YOU KNOW? Impossible Burgers contain haem, a substance found on bean plant roots that looks and tastes like blood 1Harvest tissue the A sample of muscle 2 Nurture the cells Individual muscle cells are removed and nurtured in the lab. tissue is harvested from Each one divides multiple times to the cow in a harmless produce many more cells. procedure and cut into tiny pieces so the muscle fibres and cells can be separated. 3Form muscle fibres The cells naturally merge together to form myotubes – developing muscle fibres that are less than 0.3mm (0.01in) in length. © Science Photo Library; Corbis; Thinkstock; Dreamstime 4Add some bulk The myotubes are placed in a ring and begin to put on bulk, growing into a small strand of muscle tissue. 5Layer the tissue It takes approximately 20,000 of these strands layered together to form a normal sized burger. The insect diet People throughout Africa and Asia regularly eat bugs fats, calcium, iron and zinc. Rearing them also as a source of protein, but these creepy crawly requires much less land than traditional meat snacks could soon catch on in the Western world, production and results in considerably fewer too. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture greenhouse gas emissions. Organization has suggested that insects are a As they are cold-blooded, insects are much healthier, more environmentally friendly and more more efficient at converting food into protein, sustainable alternative to conventional meat, and with cows needing 12 times as much food as insect farms are already popping up across the world. crickets to produce the same amount of The Micronutris insect Although they might not seem appetising, many protein. They can also be fed on food scraps farm in France breeds insects are very nutritious, containing lots of good and animal manure to help recycle waste. many species of insect for human consumption 059 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT Farms of Driverless tractors Although not yet commercially available, many self-driving tractors are in development. tomorrow The Autonomous Tractor Company’s Spirit tractor will navigate by sensing signals from a series of transponders set up How technology will around the field and will use radar to detect any obstacles in its way. help farmers cope with increasing demand With more and more mouths to feed, farms need to be run as efficiently as possible in order to keep up with demand. As a result, many farmers are turning to new technologies for help, using precision systems to make many of their day-to-day tasks easier. For example, GPS is already widely used to ensure tractors are driven in straight lines across fields, Smartphones and tablets preventing them from overlapping There’s a whole host of apps that can their routes. This helps to save fuel, help farmers run their farms more effectively. From checking the fertiliser and seed that would weather to registering livestock, a Electronic tags otherwise be wasted as the farmer lot of tasks can be made easier Attaching electronic tags covers the same piece of land again using digital devices such as to livestock can help smartphones and tablets. farmers keep track of and again. However, in the not-so- their animals’ health and distant future, farmers may not need habits as they send and to drive their tractors at all, with receive signals from several self-driving machines machines and alert the farmer if individual currently in development. Other animals are not being fed farming machinery is also becoming or milked enough. increasingly hi-tech, with robots being used to feed and milk livestock more efficiently. Although some of this cutting- edge tech is unaffordable for many farmers at the moment, the farms of the future are likely to be incredibly large-scale businesses, which need to be almost entirely automated in order to be cost-effective. So instead of mucking out the pigs and feeding the cows, future farmers will be able to sit back and let the machines do all the hard work, while they control everything from their smartphone or tablet. Going underground An abandoned World War II bomb shelter may in trays of water enriched with nutrients, while seem like an unusual location for growing banks of LEDs overhead provide light for energy. vegetables and herbs, but subterranean farms The Growing Underground farm 30 metres (100 could be the future of crop growing. With feet) beneath the streets of London uses a conventional farmland becoming more and more controlled hydroponics system to grow crops all scarce, and crops at risk from changing weather, year round, and can deliver its produce to the indoor alternatives can be used to fulfil the city’s restaurants and wholesalers within just demand and provide a more controllable growing four hours of being harvested. As only green environment. To grow plants indoors, hydroponic energy is used to power the lights, the farm is Growing Underground has turned an abandoned systems can be used. Instead of soil, the plants sit also carbon-neutral. bomb shelter into a sustainable farm 060 DID YOU KNOW? Most of the sugar beet, corn and soybean crops growing in the US have been genetically engineered “GPS is already widely Genetically used to ensure tractors modified crops are driven in straight lines” Growing enough food for the rapidly growing population of a planet with a changing climate Automated would be more or less impossible without genetic milking machines engineering. By modifying the genes of plants, new Robot milking machines crops can be created that are resistant to weed-killing allow cows to be milked herbicides and disease-causing pests, or are able to grow in whenever they want, inhospitable conditions. These genetically modified organisms so the farmer doesn’t (GMOs) can also be created to produce fruit and vegetables that have to herd them up stay ripe for longer, reducing wastage, or even contain more of the at 5am. The machine vitamins we need to stay healthy. Although there is some knows which cow is controversy surrounding GMOs, there is currently no evidence that which and they are bad for your health; people and livestock have been automatically consuming them for decades with no ill effects. attaches the milking teats when they enter How to genetically the booth. modify a plant The simple steps for creating a modified food crop Robot livestock feeders Automated feed pushers 1 Extract DNA DNA with the desired trait, such as herbicide can sweep the resistance, is extracted from livestock’s feed towards its host organism, such as a them when they are species of bacteria. lined up at the feed fence, ensuring that they have a constant supply of food and giving the 2Isolate gene the The specific gene is farmer one less then isolated and back-breaking task to do. can be cloned to make additional copies for modifying more plant cells. 3Transfer gene the The gene is then inserted into the plant cell using one of two methods; a gene gun or an agrobacterium. Aerial drones 4Method one Gene guns use a high-pressure gas to Drones can be used to produce accurate maps fire metal particles of farmland to calculate coated with the gene fertiliser needs, give into the plant cell. farmers a bird’s eye view of their land to help them monitor crops and even scare away pests before they can damage the yield. 6Creating plantlets 5Method two The gene is inserted The modified cells are cultured in the lab so that into a bacterium they divide and Farm called an regenerate into management agrobacterium, plantlets. © Alamy; Corbis; Rex Features; Thinkstock; Dreamstime software which smuggles it Tech-savvy farmers into the plant cell. can manage many aspects of their farm from their computer, using software to map their land, calculate the resources they need and monitor their livestock. This can help decrease wastage and 7Plant breeding The new genetically modified plant can be boost productivity, bred to create a new crop making the business that passes the gene to more profitable. new generations. 061 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT How the movie industry is poised to fight declining sales with virtual reality tech & more THE FUTURE OF CINEMA O ver the last century, the film industry has grown exponentially from its humble beginnings, expanding across the globe to upward of 135,000 movie screens, relied upon to come through the doors week after week and empty their wallets over films and snacks. For today’s teenagers, the allure of the silver fronts, creators are pushing cutting-edge cinema technology to a place that’s simply unattainable in the home, to add extra facets to the moviegoing experience and motivate people to and become an integral part of modern culture. screen is just not what it was for their parents leave the house and head for the movie theatre. But behind the scenes, all is not well. Anguished and grandparents. Gone are the days when the One obvious tack is: bigger and better. industry leaders are wringing their hands over a whole community would descend on the Covering the bigger angle is IMAX – cinemas worrying new trend: people aren’t going to the picturehouse of a Friday evening, eager to catch with giant, immersive, field-filling screens that movies as much as they used to. the latest release. swallow audiences into the action. After the Box office revenues fell by five per cent The ubiquity of smartphones, tablets and technology was debuted during the 1970 world’s between 2013 and 2014 in North America – laptops, along with the proliferation of on- fair, IMAX went public in 1994 and began its declines that meant some of the country’s demand screening services, mean the next romance with Hollywood, pioneering a way to premier cinema chains’ profits plummeted by movie is seldom more than a couple of clicks digitally remaster film for its humongous curved more than 50 per cent. The Motion Picture away. In rich countries, families have the means screens. Today, there are over 800 IMAX screens Association of America found that between 2012 to create convincingly cinematic experiences in across the globe, many housed within and 2013, the number of 18-to-24-year-olds the comfort of their own homes with huge traditional cinema multiplexes, and they’re as classed as ’frequent moviegoers‘ fell by 17 per flatscreens and surround sound systems. popular as ever. cent, with the 12-to-17 age bracket dropping by 13 But like any good action hero, the motion- As for “better”, the laser-projection revolution is per cent. These groups have traditionally been picture industry is fighting back. On multiple now upon us. For almost 100 years, film projectors 062 DID YOU KNOW? An IMAX projector weighs over 1,800kg (3,970lb) – the equivalent of a family car! 1 2 3 “The industry is pushing cutting- edge technology to a place that’s 4 simply unattainable in the home ” How RealD 3D works RealD is the most widely used technology for watching 3D films at the cinema 1Stereoscopic capture The brain perceives depth and distance by merging images from 2Sequential projection Left and right eye images are beamed sequentially at a rate of 144 3Silver screen A special screen embedded with silver (or other metallic) dust 4Special specs RealD glasses are fitted with a pair of oppositely handed circular each eye. In 3D filmmaking, special frames per second through a single perfectly maintains the polarisation filters, which allow cameras capture two side-by-side digital projector, with each passing polarisation of each image when it each eye to view only its intended images to simulate the perspectives through a circularly polarising reflects the projected light back frames. This creates the impression of a viewer’s left and right eye. light filter of opposite handedness. toward the audience. of depth in the picture. have used electric-arc lamps – first carbon, then reels of film – and enables a pristine image to be years in commercial use – a gigantic improvement xenon – as their light sources. In a traditional film projected over and over again without ever on the operating life of a xenon bulb, which is projector, light passes through the 35-millimetre scratching or losing clarity. Today, over 80 per typically between 500 and 2,000 hours. film and a magnifying lens to project the image cent of the world’s cinemas have converted to Of course, improvements in lumens and onto the screen. Over the last decade or so, more digital, but some film aficionados complain the contrasts may be all well and good for film and more cinemas have been switching to digital format loses 35-millimetre film’s rich contrasts connoisseurs, but they’re unlikely to tempt the projectors as a way to cut costs and improve between light and shadow. average 15-year-old through the door. To snare picture quality at the same time. Enter laser projectors. The new kid on the block them, cinemas are looking to augment the Digital projectors continue to use xenon arc – which made its commercial debut in 2012 experience of going to a film. Emerging 4D lamps, but a series of prisms and filters splits it – might finally be the holy grail of film projection. cinemas offer interactive encounters that blur the into its constituent colours – red, blue and green It works just like a digital projector, but uses line between cinema and amusement park; 3D – and directs each at one of a trio of spatial light individual red, blue and green laser light sources film technology is much improved, and ambitious modulator (SLM) chips. These measure just a few in place of the xenon lamp. Its pictures have studios like DreamWorks are even seriously centimetres across, but split the light into unparalleled sharpness and superior colour pursuing futuristic plans to marry virtual reality millions of tiny beams, one for each pixel in the range; finally something to rival the vibrancy and with film. frame, according to the digital movie file, before it beauty of high-quality film stock. Not only that, The next five years are set to see the swiftest passes through the projector optics. but laser projectors also produce images about and most significant technological advances in © Thinkstock The digital setup slashes distribution costs twice as bright as bulb projectors and are the history of motion pictures, coming soon to a – hard drives are much easier to ship than bulky extremely efficient, potentially lasting for ten cinema near you! 063 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT How virtual Head mount Adjustable elastic head strap and soft, reality will padded eye plate for precise fit and customisable transform comfort. cinema Step into your own private movie theatre, or even into External positional the movie itself! tracker unit Placed facing the wearer, this tracks DreamWorks – the production company the position of responsible for animation blockbusters like their head in 3D space using Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar and How To Train infrared sensors. Your Dragon – is developing technology that will take audiences right into the heart of its fantastical worlds. Its innovative new format – 1 dubbed ‘Super Cinema’ – expands the film frame from its current limited screen dimensions into a fully immersive 360-degree swathe, with the viewer at the centre. The idea Motherboard The brains of the is that when this is combined with virtual operation; includes a reality (VR) headsets such as Oculus Rift or Gear six-axis accelerometer, gyroscope and VR – special goggles that allow wearers to see magnetometer that take simulated 3D worlds – viewers will be able to positional readings 1,000 turn their gaze in any direction, to whichever times per second. part of the scene captures their attention. 2 Computer graphics are created by one of two means – real-time rendering or pre-rendering. Oculus 4 Real-time rendering is used heavily in other interactive experiences like videogames; the Rift DK2 3 game decides which frame to draw depending What makes this ultimate creator on which way the player looks. Unfortunately, of worlds tick? this is a time-consuming process, and with graphics as complex as today’s CGI animations, this method would slow the frame rate to the point where the viewer start to see the still Screen images switching or the film stalling altogether. Front panel from a Samsung Galaxy Note 3; a 14.5cm Pre-rendering – where each possible view is (5.7in) super-AMOLED already drawn and ready to load – makes the display that delivers process significantly faster and the quality of 960x1080 pixels to each eye. “Super Cinema the experience much smoother. There are some downsides, though. Each expands the film 360-degree film would need to include all actually available to consumers just yet, but the frame into a possible views of each frame, bumping up file sizes and production times astronomically. market looks set to be flooded with offerings in the next couple of years. Top of every fully immersive Super Cinema would also lack positional technophile’s wish list is the Oculus Rift, whose 360° swath ” tracking – the ability to make minor creators are also pursuing the idea of VR geometrical adjustments to the image depending on how a person tilts their head – cinema, albeit a little differently. The most recent developer version of the headset runs a 1 Tracker stand 2Tracker control board Articulated with several joints in order Includes a CMOS image and wouldn’t account for person-to-person ’game‘ that allows wearers to recreate the to get the perfect angle sensor, crystal oscillator on the headset wearer. and webcam controller. variations in interpupillary distance (the moviegoing experience – including picking distance between the eyes), which could make the film disorienting for some viewers. seats, looking around the theatre and watching the film on a huge screen in a choice of 2D and 3Lens assembly Fitted with a wide-angle lens that allows the camera 4 Infrared filter Allows only infrared Key to the success of Super Cinema will be a 3D – wherever the headset is worn – at home, on to see as much as possible light to enter into quality virtual-reality headset. Very few are the bus or in class… of the headset at any time. the camera. 064 DID YOU KNOW? Facebook bought Oculus in 2014 for £1.3bn ($2bn), aiming to bring it to medicine, education and communication External hood Covered by a web of 40 infrared LEDs whose movement is tracked by the external IR unit. Beyond 3D: Introducing the fourth dimension For those eager to feel even closer to the action, auditorium drives their movements, which are 4D cinemas combine the visual richness of 3D pre-programmed, along with other effects, for film with physical and tactile sensations – each film. Some theatres are even touting Interchangeable flashing lights, air jets, water sprays, scents, experiences labelled ‘5D’, ‘6D’ and up, but lenses smoke, chair movements and more – that sync unfortunately, that’s little more than a Unit ships with two with and enhance the on-screen drama. marketing ploy – with each individual physical additional sets of lenses Seats are grouped in small clusters and a effect added to the screening being classed as its with varying focal large air compressor located behind the own extra ‘dimension’. lengths, to allow for users with differing Sound system Vibrating pads Moveable racks eyesight prescriptions. Standard 5.1 surround sound Produce tactile sensations to Can move chairs up and down, speaker system, augmented by heighten the drama – for example, side to side and tip forward, ceiling speakers to offer directional a deep rumbling to accompany an backward and sideways to “voice of god” moments. avalanche beginning to roll. mirror the on-screen action. Tickle stick Hall effects Effects jets Activated by air jets in the chairs – Includes bubbles, mist, Water and air jets intensify designed to make audiences jump out aromas, strobe lighting, scenes with wind, rain, blood of their skins during spider scenes! and even fire! and guts, or speed. How frame rate affects perception When we watch a film, what our eyes actually see is a stream of still photographs switched so fast through the projector that our brain perceives them as one seamless motion picture, a bit like a hi-tech flipbook. The threshold below which the brain is able to start perceiving individual images is 16 frames per second (fps), and the higher the frame rate, the more real the reel appears. With this in mind, the film industry grew up around a frame rate of 24fps as a way to balance production costs with painting reality convincingly on screen. Today, big studios can afford to film movies at © iFixit; Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy higher rates, ostensibly to offer their audiences a greater sense of immersion. But it turns out this can backfire. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit (2012) was filmed at 48fps and many people complained. After decades of conditioning, we’ve become accustomed to 24fps as an integral part of the ’cinematic‘ feeling, so audiences find hyperrealism disorienting, and a barrier to getting lost in the movie experience. 065 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT Inside IMAX technology IMAX cinemas display gigantic images with incredible resolution, for a completely immersive experience Seating Steeply racked so that even children’s views are unobstructed, and people can gaze up and down as in real life. IMAX Watching an IMAX movie is without Audio system Six-channel sound system directs 12,000 watts of sound out of thousands of tiny holes across the entire screen. question one of the most arresting film experiences in the world. Invented in Canada in 1970, by the end of 2013 there were 837 IMAX theatres in 57 countries across the world. Its defining feature is humongous screens – so large that the images completely fill the viewer’s field of vision, giving them a feeling of immersion so strong that some even feel motion sickness during especially dynamic scenes! Projection 180° Projector OMNIMAX dome Hemispherical dome made of metal and coated with highly reflective white paint wraps the entire audience in larger-than-life images. Projector Screen Flat IMAX Uses a silver-coated flat screen that reflects light more intensely than a white screen. Screen Equal to a seven-storey IMAX building 21 m Dwarfs a Film format standard 15/70 – 70mm (2.8in) film with 15 movie screen perforations per frame – results in a frame 29 m size about ten times that of standard 35mm Traditional film, giving IMAX movies incredible clarity. 35mm frame 066 DID YOU KNOW? Google’s “Cardboard” VR headset is a wearable cardboard frame with a slot for your smartphone – and it works! Laser multiplexes There is still no success in developing quieter popcorn for cinema of the future A switch from bulb and focus them onto the projectors to laser projectors screen – via armoured would open up the fibre-optic cables in the IMAX 3D possibility of all the screens Viewers wear glasses walls of the theatre. with lenses that in a multiplex cinema being In this setup, the laser produce 3D fed by one light source. A light farm would be vision. centrally located ‘light farm‘ responsible for simultaneous would host racks of high- screenings of different powered red, green and blue movies in each auditorium. lasers connected to a single The cinema’s running costs power supply and cooled by could be dramatically liquids circulating from the reduced since there would cinema’s rooftop HVAC no longer be a need for system. Light would travel to dedicated projection booths, each auditorium’s projector and the projectors and light head – fitted with the spatial farm could even be light modulators and optics controlled by off-site to create the moving images networked operators. Projector head HVAC cooling Light travels through the system projector heads to Lasers are hooked up to create moving images. a single power supply and cooled by liquids. One laser light farm could power many simultaneous screenings of different movies Light farm A centrally located ‘light farm’ would house racks of red, green and blue lasers. The first projection systems Objective Light Projected beam image Reels Wheels held the film and Handle to made it move the move film forward. Image forward. Lens support © Sol90; Thinkstock Ca 17th century 1895 1932 The ’magic lantern‘ was the first system The Lumière brothers invented a projector The rise of colour cinema. Technicolor cameras resembling modern projectors. They used that took its mechanical inspiration from a superimpose three films in red, blue and green candles or oil lanterns as light sources. sewing machine, and presented it in Paris. to deliver full-colour spectrum images. 067 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT The Dandy Lab is How will testing interactive information screens and smart footfall counters we shop? From robot shop assistants to virtual fitting rooms, this tech will revolutionise retail here is no doubt that the internet has them by way of cookies. These simple text T changed the way we shop, with many people preferring to click and buy from the comfort of their own homes instead of files are downloaded onto your computer when you visit a website and store information about which products you looked at there. The venturing out to browse the local stores. The cookies can then be accessed by the retail convenience of not having to deal with bustling company, enabling them to target you with With many stores struggling to compete, queues or lug your purchases around is no adverts based on your preferences, so you will some clever innovators are developing new doubt very appealing, but there are huge be more likely to take notice. This personalised technologies that can help them. The Dandy benefits for the retailers too. service often helps to boost sales, but it isn’t Lab, a menswear and lifestyle outlet in London, As people peruse their products online, something the stores on the high street can is providing a testing ground, enabling companies can collect lots of useful data about take advantage of. companies to try out their ideas on real-life Lighting the way How Philips’ system can help you navigate the aisles 1 2 Emit the signal Find your location When you enter the store, the light fixture above you emits a Your smartphone’s camera receives the code telling it exactly unique identification code. where you are in the store. 3 Plan a route 4 Get the deals An app on your phone plots the most efficient route to As you walk down an aisle, the lights above send discount the products on your shopping list. codes for the nearby products to your phone. 068 DID YOU KNOW? Amazon has opened a bookstore in Seattle, with online reviews shown next to the books on the shelves customers. “At the moment there is a lot of tech for online shops, but there is nothing really “Smart mannequins can send happening in the brick and mortar information about the clothes they are environment,” says co-founder Julija Bainiaksina. “We wanted to see how we can wearing to the customers’ phones” integrate technology in-store and make the shopping journey from online to off line seamless and more convenient for the customer.” Virtual reality The growth of virtual reality The ‘clothes-store meets retail technology lab’ shopping will enable you is currently trialling several new methods for Imagine being able to wander to explore enhancing the shopping experience. These around a shop and try out the shops from the products without ever leaving comfort of include smart mannequins that can send your home your house. With several information about the clothes they are wearing virtual reality headsets now to the customers’ phones, and a mobile payment available, this fantasy is fast app that enables you to use your phone to scan a becoming reality, enabling you to experience the fun of product’s barcode, pay for it and take it home shopping without the stress of without having to queue at all. The shop is also crowds or queues. It can also attempting to replicate online ‘cookie’ open up some unique try-before-you-buy technology with a smart loyalty card scheme that opportunities. Teaming up with helps shop assistants provide a more Microsoft Hololens, car personalised service. “We give every single manufacturer Volvo was able to create a virtual showroom, customer a loyalty card containing an RFID allowing customers to strip [radio-frequency identification] chip, and at the down holograms of its cars door we have an RFID reader,” says Julija. “Once and watch the vehicles in action. Virtual reality the customer comes back to the shop, we production company Visualise instantly receive information about what they has also made it possible for bought, what they like and so on. This gives our customers of travel agent Volvo’s virtual reality Thomas Cook to experience showroom lets customers see sales staff a better understanding of the holiday destinations before the inner workings of its cars customer, so they can recommend products booking a trip. based on their previous purchases.” For Julija, using this new technology is not about competing with online retailers but helping online and off line shopping to Beacon bargains Everyone loves a bargain, and thanks to a new While these beacons can detect when you are complement each other. “For physical shops, the retail technology, they are becoming easier than nearby, Philips’ connected lighting system has main benefit is the ability to showcase their ever to find. Devices called beacons are small taken things even further. The LED lights it has products and provide an experience,” she Bluetooth transmitters that can be installed in installed along the aisles of a Carrefour shops and communicate with smartphones of supermarket in Lille, France, can work out exactly explains. “What we found out is that a lot of passers-by. Already being used on London’s where you are in the store, and send deals for people come to the shop just to try on the Regent Street, the beacons can send exclusive products in close proximity. The technology is products, touch them, feel them, and see if they deals to an app on your phone when you walk called Visible Light Communication, which uses past a shop, encouraging you to step inside and rapidly flickering LEDs to emit signals that are really want them, and then they go home and snap up the offer. picked up by your smartphone’s camera sensor. buy them online. Alternatively, they might do Illustrations by Edward Crooks research online, and then come into the shop to Beacons installed in try something on and buy it. So both of those ‘smart mannequins’ can tell you exactly channels – online and off line – need to work with what they are wearing each other. The technology should somehow fuse them together to provide one seamless shopping experience for the customer.” In the future, it could be that shops simply become showrooms, stocking tester products for you to try before you purchase them via interactive display screens. Alternatively you may not need to visit the shop at all, instead using a virtual reality helmet to browse and even interact with the products before you part with your cash. In the meantime though, there are plenty of changes already appearing on the high street. From Bluetooth beacons that help you bag a bargain to augmented reality mirrors that let you try on clothes without getting changed; a trip to the mall is about to get a lot more high-tech. 069 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT The mall of 2020 The high-tech breakthroughs that will change the way you shop Sensors and trackers Knowing more about the people who walk into their store can help retailers provide personalised customer service. However, instead of using intrusive facial recognition, Hoxton Analytics has developed a footfall counter that gathers data from people’s shoes. A camera records their feet as they walk into the store, and a processor uses clever algorithms to determine their likely age, gender and what brands they like. Other sensors can also track the Wi-Fi pings from customer’s smartphones to track where they look in the store. Information screens With shops only capable of stocking so many products, some are already including digital displays that let customers access the entire catalogue if they can’t find what they want in-store. In the future this could lead to virtual stores, such as the experiment by South Korean store Homeplus. Images of their products were displayed on the walls of a subway station, and by scanning a QR code on their phone commuters could order online and have them delivered by the time they got home. 3D printers As well as selling 3D-printed Virtual fitting rooms products, some stores are already Instead of having to get changed to try on a letting you print your own. A variety new outfit, images of the new clothes can be of 3D-printing stores have already superimposed over live footage of you on the started to pop up on the high street fitting room ‘mirror’. The Magic Mirror uses a and could be a staple of shopping Kinect body sensor to monitor your position malls in the near future. Customers so it can ensure correct placement of the will be able to download a design or garment on a screen. You can then select a create their own. They can then have new outfit via gesture or touch screen control, the product made while they wait or and even take a picture of your new look to send their design to the shop and pick send to your friends for approval. up the finished product later. 070 DID YOU KNOW? Tesco petrol stations have trialled using facial recognition software to provide targeted adverts at the checkout “3D-printing stores have Smart tags already started to pop up Tags on your clothes could soon tell you a lot more than the washing instructions. As on the high street” electronic components have become smaller and cheaper, Norwegian company Thinfilm have been able to develop flexible smart labels with Near Field Communication technology, enabling a wide range of useful information about the product to be sent to your smartphone. This could alert you to ingredients in food items that you might be allergic to, or tell you more about how a product was made. Digital window displays Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed see-through screens that could replace shop windows. Nanoparticles embedded in the material can be tuned to scatter only certain wavelengths of light, letting the rest pass through so the screen appears transparent. This would enable additional product information and adverts to appear over physical window displays – this could then be changed depending on the weather, time of day or even who is walking past the store at the time. Robot shop assistants With so many different products in a store, it can be difficult for the staff to know where everything is. This is why researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed AndyVision, a robot that can patrol and scan the aisles to create an interactive store map for customers. It can also perform an inventory to alert staff when a product is low in stock or if an item is out of place on the shelves. Drone deliveries If you’ve done your shopping but don’t fancy carrying it home or waiting ages for it to be delivered, you could get it sent to your home by a drone. At the Illustrations by Nicholas Forder moment, delivery drones such as Amazon’s Prime Air are only allowed to be flown within sight of the operator, but as computer power improves and sensors become cheaper, automated flying will become much safer. 071 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT OUR TIC KET Y HIG H- TO THE Y H O LIDA TECH FUTURE OF THE CHOOSE YOUR MODE OF TRANSPORT Dassault Systèmes’ concept for a flying cruise liner The Spike S-512 jet will mirror the speed of Concorde t’s 2050 and taking a vacation is easier than ever, Skyscanner’s director of hotels, already predicted back I thanks to the latest technological breakthroughs. Over the next few pages, we’ll guide you through every step of your trip, from planning and booking, to in 2016: “In ten years’ time a traveller will be able to take a virtual reality walk through the hotel he is planning to book in real-time.” © Zaha Hadid Architects/Bloom+Voss Shipyards/Moka-Studio travelling and making the most of your stay. The stress of travelling is long gone and getting to your Some of the technology involved might seem destination is almost as enjoyable as the holiday itself. Avoid the airport altogether by taking your TF-X flying car unbelievable, but all of it was already real, or under In 2016, Melissa Weigel from design studio Moment development, in 2016. Take the process of booking your Factory said: “In the near future, airports will be an trip; you may have been using comparison websites to intrinsic part of the holiday experience.” Since then, find the best deals, but now you don’t need to enter your automated check-in and speedy security scanning has information, as online travel agents already know your made boarding your flight a breeze. preferences. Gareth Williams, CEO and co-founder of Holiday destinations have also changed a great deal, travel company Skyscanner, said: “Travel search and as futurist Daniel Burrus predicted: “Relatively booking will be as easy as buying a book on Amazon.” affordable trips in low Earth orbit that enable you to The 90-metre luxury JAZZ yacht There’s no longer any guesswork involved in picking experience a few minutes of weightlessness will happen features an indoor pool your holiday destination either, as Nik Gupter, very soon.” Now we’ve our sights on the Moon and Mars. 072 DID YOU KNOW? Disney’s Revel interface can convey the feel of rough terrain as you slide your fingers across a map BOOKING YOUR HOLIDAY Get the VIP treatment from the off Choose a Use an e-agent destination You can rent an artificially Social media and intelligent e-agent from online retailers use your local travel company members’ profiles to to help plan your trip. The monitor activity and tech is similar to JIBO – the alter the content they personal assistant released see. Travel brands now in 2015 that uses two operate in a similar hi-res cameras to way, logging your likes recognise faces and and dislikes, while algorithms to learn your facial coding preferences and adapt. algorithms, as developed by Affectiva, enable search engines to read human expressions and gauge how happy you are with the results. Book with ease While apps like Expedia enabled 2016 holidaymakers to arrange most aspects of their trip, 2050 takes the tech a step further. You can use a one-stop app to book your flights, hotel and Take a virtual vacation holiday activities with VR headsets enable you to try before you buy. By using dual lenses with a a couple of taps of slightly different image in front of each eye, it recreates your normal your smartwatch. stereoscopic vision and fools your brain into thinking virtual worlds are Even transport to the real. Disney’s Revel system, developed in 2012, uses electrical signals to airport will be taken create the feeling of touch. care of. AT THE AIRPORT How tech will take the stress out of travelling Smart tags Biometric scans Speedy checks As you drop off your Instead of a passport, a The Picosecond bags, they’re fitted with biometric data card is Programmable Laser is a tags containing Near used to identify you. scanner that vibrates the Field Communication Images of your eye, taken molecules in your body (NFC) chips. When they with a camera that and possessions to come into close contact records visible and identify different with another NFC chip infrared light, capture the substances, from traces inside the scanner, your exact position of the iris’ of gunpowder to the personal and flight data unique patterns and contents of your is transferred wirelessly. features. As you board stomach. It’s 10 million You can then track each the plane, your eyes are times faster than a scan via an app. scanned and matched. conventional scanner. 073 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT ON THE Sit back, relax and fly PLANE Skyscanner’s personalised aircraft seat concept will provide ultimate comfort on your journey Sonic disrupters Your journey will fly by as Smart lighting Constant connection Next-gen 5G mobile internet and Devices embedded in the Red wavelengths of you explore the onboard light stimulate the advanced satellite broadband are seat rest prevent other passengers from hearing your entertainment options brain’s production of the sleep hormone available throughout the flight. private conversations. Instead of waiting around at the gate, you are melatonin, helping you drift off and free to explore the airport’s rooftop gardens, fight jetlag. art exhibitions and shops at your leisure, safe in the knowledge that a 3D holographic assistant will appear to tell you when the plane is boarding. Holograms have been around since the development of lasers in the 1960s, but recent advancements in technology mean they’re Holographic hub now much more impressive. They used to be Hold 3D conversations created by splitting a laser beam in two and with friends and family back home or become directing each beam towards an object using fully immersed in the mirrors. The beams were then reflected off movies of your choice. the object and at the point where they recombined, a still hologram of the original object formed. In recent years, we’ve mastered moving holographic images, resulting in ultra-realistic 3D content for entertainment and practical uses. When it’s time to stroll onto the plane, you’ll find that the Airbus Concept Cabin has become reality, and you’re no longer confined to your Memory-foam seat own seat. First class and economy have been Climate control The roomy aircraft seat moulds Built-in climate control lets you monitor to your body shape, providing replaced with zones tailored to your different and adjust heating and cooling systems comfortable support that needs, whether you want to relax, mingle with for your individual seat. minimises back pain. other passengers or play some games. Relaxing Private pods atmosphere Pop-up rooms allow you to Modular Soft aromas and gentle sounds fill the hold business meetings, have a romantic meal or aircraft cabin to help ease you into a deep sleep. read the kids a bedtime story on the flight. A cabin design with zones for work, rest and play Immersive entertainment Practise your tennis or golf at the virtual gaming wall or put on a VR headset to be transported to a cinematic world. Interactive window displays provide interesting information about the view Self-cleaning Panoramic views Dirt repellent coatings With the wave of a hand, inspired by nature ensure the aircraft wall becomes the aircraft’s fittings and transparent, offering a furnishings are kept in spectacular view of the good condition. outside world. 074 DID YOU KNOW? Self-service kiosks at Incheon airport in South Korea allow a three-minute check-in for eight major airlines YOU HAVE Motion sensors Smart mirror REACHED YOUR Upon entering the room, the lights automatically switch on and the coffee As you get ready for the day, the local weather, news stories and your Future hotel rooms DESTINATION machine whirs into action. emails are projected over your reflection. The intuitive tech-filled rooms that will provide a home away from home The smart hotel room will ensure the stress-free experience continues Touchscreen control A central interactive hub gives you control over all internet-connected appliances to Once you’ve stepped off the plane and fully customise the temperature, swiftly passed through immigration with humidity and lighting in your room. your biometric card, you will find another Keyless entry Avoid check-ins by downloading driverless taxi waiting to take you to your your key code onto your phone and hotel. Instead of having to pick up your scanning it at your hotel room door. room key at the check-in desk, you can proceed straight to your room and unlock it using your smartphone, a system that was adopted early by Hilton and Marriott hotel chains. Your bags are delivered to your door by a robot butler, such as Botlr, the droid employed by Aloft Hotels at their Californian establishments. He can be summoned via an app to bring you any toiletries you may have forgotten to pack, or Biometric safe deliver a tasty snack to help you refuel after Keep your personal your long journey. possessions secure in Just as everything in your own home is a safe that only opens Robot butler when it scans your Your luggage, room service, connected to the internet, all of your hotel fingerprint or retina. fresh towels and more are room’s appliances are smart and intuitive delivered by a robot that you too. You can even upload your home can summon via an app. temperature preferences to the room’s Nest thermostat, and display family photos on the digital wall displays, to help you feel really at home. A good night’s rest is guaranteed as the Sleep Number x12 bed features sensors that monitor your sleep, ensuring the alarm Wireless charging clock gently wakes you at the optimum Forget to bring your phone time, and can tilt the pillows to stop your VR headset charger or plug adapter? Get a taster of local attractions Don’t worry, there’s an partner snoring. All of this tech already by paying a virtual visit via the inductive charger built into existed as of 2016, but has since been VR headset in your room. the bedside unit. adopted by hotels throughout the world. WEIRD HOTELS THAT ACTUALLY EXIST The frozen hotel The salt palace The jumbo Made entirely from Located on the edge of experience ‘snice’ – a mixture of the world’s largest salt If you haven’t had enough snow and ice – the flats in Bolivia, the of airplanes by the time Icehotel in Sweden melts Palacio de Sal has been you leave the airport, © ICEHOTEL/Paulina Holmgren in the summer and is built using one million then Jumbo Stay will let rebuilt every winter, with blocks of salt and you dwell in one too. The construction taking just features 16 rooms, a spa converted 747-200 jumbo six weeks. Temperatures and a golf course. jet is grounded near inside the hotel are Everything from the walls Arlanda Airport in between -5 and -7 to the beds is made Sweden and features degrees Celsius. entirely from salt. over 30 rooms. 075 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT At the spaceport Remote location Catch a space plane into orbit from your local spaceflight hub Due to the higher risk involved with rocket vehicles, spaceports are located away from Airspace densely populated areas. Space plane operations are conducted in segregated special-use airspace, away from World View’s helium- normal air traffic routes. filled balloon will float a capsule full of space tourists to the edge of space Spaceflight operators Lots of different commercial Refuelling spaceflight companies operate Rocket engines need both fuel from the same spaceport, so a and a source of oxygen, and Terminal building number of different vehicles different types are needed for Not just for check-in and are catered for. different spacecrafts. shopping, the terminal also hosts astronaut training facilities to prepare Runway passengers for their flight. Space planes like Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo need a long runway for horizontal take-off and landing. SPACE TOURISM Take a trip that’s literally out of this world If you really want to escape from it all, then how force you back into your seat and you’ll about leaving the planet altogether? Space experience over 3 g for 150 seconds and tourism is a billion dollar market in 2050 and then the booster engine will cut off as Blue Origin first vertically landed a there are several companies offering trips. Blue you glide into space. The capsule will booster in 2015, Origin, the company set up by Amazon founder separate from the booster, and from the paving the way for Jeff Bezos, can offer you breathtaking views serene silence will come the signal to reusable rockets from its New Shepard spacecraft as you soar release your harness. over 100 kilometres above Earth. As you float out of your seat and marvel You’ll need to arrive at the desert launch site at the weightless freedom, you’ll forget in West Texas two days before your flight so you that you’re travelling faster than Mach 3 can begin your astronaut training. You’ll – three times the speed of sound – and stare receive mission and vehicle overviews, back at Earth out of the capsule window. XCOR Aero space is plan in-depth safety briefings and instructions on Before descent, you will return to your seat to Lynx spacep ning to laun lane from its ch its Curaçao sp how to move in a weightless environment. strap in for re-entry. Forces of over 5 g will push aceport When the morning of your flight arrives, it’s against you before the parachutes deploy and time to scale the steps of the launch tower and thrusters fire, reducing your speed as you climb through the hatch of the capsule, which gently float back to Earth. Once you’ve landed, sits on top of an 18-metre tall rocket. just miles from where you launched, you can go Once you’re strapped in and have received and collect the complimentary souvenirs of final clearance for launch, the countdown to your thrilling trip. That’s right; novelty lift-off will begin. The extreme acceleration will keyrings still exist in 2050. 076 DID YOU KNOW? The first space tourist was US multimillionaire Dennis Tito, who paid $20m to spend eight days on the ISS in 2001 UNDERWATER HOTELS Sleep, eat and relax with the fishes Back in 2016, the closest thing to an underwater in 2016, its doors are open in Dubai in 2050. suite was the five-star Atlantis, The Palm, in Once you arrive by boat or helicopter from the Dubai. The floor-to-ceiling views of a colossal shore, you can relax in your room and watch the aquarium created such a spectacular illusion marine critters swim by, or sign up for a diving that celebs like Kim Kardashian were willing to course to get even closer to the action. You don’t splash the cash to stay there. even need to go back up to the surface in order But while a fully-fledged underwater haven to get in the water, as there’s sea access direct like the Water Discus Hotel was just a concept from the underwater disc. Underwater suites at The Palm, Dubai, offer views of 65,000 marine animals Upper disc Located five to seven metres above the water, The Water this disc features a restaurant, spa, swimming Discus Get up close with marine pool, garden and helipad. life in Dubai’s ocean hotel View to the sky A wide shaft with a view of the sky helps to minimise any claustrophobic feelings Sturdy structure you may have underwater. The two large discs of the structure are anchored to the seabed by four legs, and joined by a vertical shaft containing a lift and stairway. Remote-controlled cameras Underwater vehicles equipped with cameras can be operated from inside the hotel, giving you an even closer view of your marine surroundings. Underwater disc Submerged around ten metres below sea level, this Safety first disc features 21 hotel The underwater disc rooms, an underwater dive will automatically float to centre and a bar. the surface in the event of an emergency, such as an earthquake. Underwater airlock Divers can go straight out into the ocean from the underwater disc, which is equipped with a decompression chamber. 077 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT THE FUTURE OF TEACHING WHAT WILL SCHOOLS BE LIKE IN 2050? 078 DID YOU KNOW? Universe Sandbox² is a physics-based VR experience allowing players to create and interact with planets he modern-day classroom isn’t really all T that different from a Victorian classroom. The teacher still stands at the front, with the children facing them, answering questions TABLETS OVER TEXTBOOKS In the coming years, the idea of carrying around piles and piles of and taking hand-written notes. While there isn’t heavy books for each school day will a cane, and we’ve swapped squeaky chalk for likely be a thing of the past. Whether marker pens, the format hasn’t really evolved. it’s schools providing their pupils with tablets, or students bringing in their It’s strange when you consider the own computer devices, the future of advancements that we’ve made in the same the textbook is clearly in a touchscreen amount of time: we’ve landed on the Moon, display. A single tablet can hold an entire year’s worth of learning unravelled the human genome and created materials, as well as providing students super-computers you carry in your pocket. So with interactive tests, videos and apps, why is education stuck in the 20th century? controlled by the school. In some The idea of every student having a schools in the US, this is already In some schools, it isn’t; advancements in happening, and it’s undoubtedly the tablet won’t seem odd in ten years teaching, communication and technology have first step in a teaching revolution. totally changed the working environments of students around the world, and the future only holds more progress. Looking closer at that Games will be used as part of coding lessons, GAMING AND modern day classroom reveals some details you helping children to have fun while they learn LEARNING Many teachers and parents assume may have missed at the first pass. Those hand- video games are unnecessarily violent and highly addictive, and without written notes might be taken on an iPad with a educational merit. But in recent years stylus, with the handwriting converted into games have started making their way typed text and the finished document saved to into the classroom as learning materials. Games like Minecraft, the ‘cloud’. The board is interactive, and can which now has a dedicated Education display websites, videos and more that the Edition, can teach children through teacher can control with a smart remote. play. And kids who usually go home and spend hours of their free time on In fact, while the basic format of teaching may games like this are enjoying learning remain largely unchanged, technology has more than ever. Using games in the improved how kids learn, what they learn, and classroom will only increase as coding lessons become more commonplace in how they are taught. Textbooks are, of course, the near future. still a big part of the school experience, but increasingly e-books and online research are being used in place of the traditional tomes. In Virtual reality will let students take VIRTUAL REALITY some schools, students are loaned iPads or other trips through history and into space LESSONS Soon, classes won’t need to leave the tablets, loaded with their entire reading list for school to take a field trip. Virtual reality the year. Rather than straining their spines by headsets will allow students to journey carrying huge backpacks, pupils only need one across the world, and even dive beneath the waves or float through device. Even better, they can make helpful notes space, without ever leaving the room. on the pages, or highlight useful sections, As this technology becomes more without being charged for defacing the book. affordable and software developers begin to create virtual learning spaces, Of course, these books can also include links to lessons will become more engaging websites that aid learning. Digital pages can and immersive than ever before. Pupils contain useful information for additional study could soon find themselves learning about volcanoes from the edge of or homework, or can even take students to online Mount Etna, exploring ancient dig sites tests. The teacher can then check in on who has in Egypt, or even taking a trip through taken the test, how they scored, and get more the human body to study anatomy. information about each pupil, including how long they spent working on each question. redesigned to reflect this, and teachers’ roles are to discuss their work at home, using teacher- The internet has become a valuable teaching slowly changing to a more passive role. controller chatrooms that allow them to resource and is regularly used in the classroom. And as technology becomes more and more collaborate on projects. Gaming will increasingly Rather than formal videos recorded in the days of accessible, this will only increase. Tech like 3D be used to teach, and eye-tracking will help VHS, teachers can quickly find useful resources printing will allow students and teachers alike to teachers analyse what works best in the and play them to the class. Not only is this more create teaching materials within minutes. 3D classroom, and what is failing to grab attention. engaging than a video that’s decades old, it can modelling lessons will be able to go from the Of course, as teaching changes, so will the also prompt further discussion. design to the prototyping stage within a few curriculum. For example, as computing skills are Technological advancements have changed hours, while lessons about biology will see becoming more important in this digital age, the way teachers work, too. More and more, teachers printing out 3D models of ancient many students are learning how to program. © Alamy; Thinkstock students are being encouraged to work in small animal skulls to pass around the class. Cloud In the UK, pupils as young as five are being groups and foster interaction, with technology as computing will eradicate excuses like “the dog taught how to code, with simple games showing an enabler. Learning spaces are being ate my homework”, and give classmates a chance them the basics. 079 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT Desk-embedded computing Augmented learning FUTURE CLASSROOMS How will tech change learning in the coming years? 3D projections Interactive holograms will allow students to walk around models of planets, animals and more, studying them in more detail. Augmented learning Glasses with special over-eye displays will let students view related, useful Indoor information around a school trips subject as they learn. Students will bring in their own VR headsets from home in order to take virtual outings as a group. Guided learning Interactive boards will allow teachers to pose questions at the start of the lesson, before students form into groups to direct their own learning. Desk-embedded computing Desks will be a lot more than surfaces to lean on. Screens built into the table-tops will allow students to work without extra computers or hardware. Digital worksheets Paper-thin screens Gaming will be commonplace, Games will be Online discussions allowing a single introduced into the The online area will be used as a worksheet to change classroom as a tool for place to communicate, with throughout the day learning, making the students and teachers to display classroom a more contributing to discussions about information the interesting and engaging a day’s lesson for homework. students need. place for students. 080 DID YOU KNOW? Currently, 3D printers can take hours to print small models, but in future models will be created in minutes Passing notes VR lessons “Interactive Passing notes holograms will Kids won’t write notes to each other any more VR lessons Dedicated booths will allow students – instead, they’ll send messages through their allow students to step away from the to walk around smart watches so the teacher doesn’t see. classroom and take trips into history, models of space, or the future. planets, animals and more” The new textbooks Carrying bulky textbooks around will be a thing of the © Illustration by Nicholas Forder past, with tablets Analytic learning containing a student’s Printing the future Students will be entire reading list for the 3D printers in the classroom encouraged to record academic year. will allow students to create their own work, so they can watch it back later real, hard copies of items to analyse their own they are studying to performance. manipulate and analyse. 081 LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT Pilot protection Carbon structure Jetpack anatomy The roll bar and arm The jetpack’s central See the clever design that keeps the restraints help to keep the beam is made from gadget airborne and safe pilot safe; the aircraft’s carbon fibre with a foam structure adds additional core, while the fuel tank is Built-in safety protection from the rear encased in Kevlar and a The parachute system and sides. fuel-resistant resin. automatically deploys if the engine fails, allowing the aircraft to slowly return to the ground. Fan propulsion Two carbon fibre fan ducts provide thrust, drawing air in through the top, In-flight controls where it’s accelerated by the rotors and Two joysticks and a then forced out of the bottom. touchscreen control the aircraft; if the pilot releases these it will Powerful engine automatically hover at its The 200 horsepower, current altitude. petrol-powered engine provides a top speed of 74 kilometres per hour. Weighing 60 kilograms, the V4 engine produces 200 horsepower at 6,000 RPM Taking off The aircraft takes off and lands vertically, much like a helicopter. THE MARTIN JETPACK How does this high-flying gadget take to the skies? ver since they first made an appearance in mopeds. This powers two carbon fibre fan ducts, balance out the controls between the pilot and E science fiction films, real jetpacks have been promised by a number of different companies and inventors around the world. one fitted to either side of the jetpack. Air is drawn in from above and accelerated using the fan’s rotors, creating enough downforce to the onboard computer. Once airborne, the Martin Jetpack can fly for roughly 30 minutes, achieving a top speed of 74 kilometres per hour. With its latest prototype, the Martin Aircraft propel a payload of up to 120 kilograms to a When this jetpack does eventually go on sale, Company believes it has mastered this long height of around 900 metres. it will retail in the region of £99,000 ($150,000). © Martin Aircraft Company anticipated personal aircraft. The aircraft is made from sturdy, foam-filled However, this won’t just be reserved for Despite the name, it isn’t actually powered by carbon fibre, and can be piloted using two gadget-loving millionaires. A number of a jet engine. Instead, this contraption relies on a joysticks and a touchscreen, or flown from the emergency services are interested in using the 200 horsepower, V4 engine, fuelled by a mix of ground via a remote control. It benefits from a jetpack; the Abu Dhabi fire service has already regular petrol and two stroke oil – much like old fly-by-wire, semi-automatic system that helps to made a bulk order. 082 DID YOU KNOW? Samsung previously revealed a prototype for a flexible 105 inch TV screen in 2014 The ReFlex is the wwvorld’s first wireless flexible smartphone Your new flexible smartphone © SXS; R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL /MIT/LIGO Lab; Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine; Human Media Lab; UZH/USI/SUPSI Bend-control helps bring Angry Birds to life o you ever wish you could just take your smartphone, you can interact with apps simply pages of an e-book, or stretch the sling when D bulky, rigid smartphone and roll it up to put it in your chest pocket? While it might sounds like science fiction, flexible and by bending the handset, as seen in the screen that LG showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2016. So how does it work? Bend sensors playing Angry Birds. A voice coil inside the phone will then simulate the feedback from these actions through vibrations, helping you bendable smartphones are closer than you behind the LG Display Flexible OLED touch feel the rubber band stretch and snap back or think – in fact, the technology already exists. screen sense the force you apply, and this the pages flip through your fingers. Your next LG When using the world’s first wireless flexible information can be used to flick through the smartphone could well be flexible! 083 MEDICINE 086 098 Hacking Medical nanotech the body 092 The future of vaccines 084 104 86 Hacking the human body How can technology complement our biology? Building a nanobot 92 The future of medicine Can we predict how fatal diseases might be cured? 98 Saving lives with nanotech How these microscopic robots could be your new doctors 136 The antibiotic apocalypse Can we fight the rise of the antibiotic-resistant superbug? 142 Miracle science: Amazing new medical technology 096 Can malaria be cured? 098 Inside nanotech DID YOU KNOW? Hobbyists who experiment with augmenting their bodies are known as ‘biohackers’ or ‘grinders’ e are limited by our biology: prone to implanted into his arm, which allowed him to from his mobile phone. Others have had W illness, doomed to wear out over time, and restricted to the senses and abilities that nature has crafted for us over open doors, turn on lights and activate computers without even touching them. In 2002, the system was upgraded to communicate magnets fitted inside their fingers, allowing them to sense magnetic fields, and some are experimenting with aesthetic implants, putting millions of years of evolution. But not any more. with his nervous system; 100 electrodes were silicon shapes and lights beneath their skin. Biological techniques are getting cheaper linked up to his median nerve. Meanwhile, researchers are busy developing and more powerful, electronics are getting Through this new implant, he could control a the next generation of high-tech equipment to smaller, and our understanding of the human wheelchair, move a bionic arm and, with the upgrade the body still further. body is growing. Pacemakers already keep our help of a matched implant fitted into his wife, This article comes with a health warning: we hearts beating, hormonal implants control our he was even able to receive nerve impulses don’t want you to try this at home. But it’s an fertility, and smart glasses augment our vision. from another human being. exciting glimpse into some of the emerging We are teetering on the edge of the era of Professor Warwick’s augmentations were the technology that could be used to augment our humanity 2.0, and some enterprising product of a biomedical research project, but bodies in the future. Let’s dive in to the individuals have already made the leap to the waiting for these kinds of modifications to hit sometimes shady world of biohacking. other side. the mainstream is proving too much for some While much of the technology developed so enterprising individuals, and hobbyists are far has had a medical application, people are starting to experiment for themselves. “We are teetering on now choosing to augment their healthy bodies to extend and enhance their natural abilities. Amal Graafstra is based in the US, and is a double implantee. He has a Radio Frequency the edge of the era of Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at Identification (RFID) chip embedded in each humanity 2.0” Coventry University, claims to be the “world’s hand: the left opens his front door and starts his first cyborg”. In 1998, he had a silicon chip motorbike, and the right stores data uploaded IMPLANTS Professional and amateur biohackers are exploring different ways of augmenting our skin Electronic tattoos Not so much an implant as a stick-on mod, this high-tech tattoo from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) can store information, change colour, and even control your phone. Created by the MIT Media Lab and Microsoft Research, DuoSkin is a step forward from the micro-devices that fit in clothes, watches and other wearables. These tattoos use gold leaf to conduct electricity against the skin, performing three main functions: input, output and communication. Some of the tattoos work like buttons or The electronic tattoos touch pads. Others change colour using work as touch sensors, resistors and temperature-sensitive change colour, and chemicals, and some contain coils that can receive Wi-Fi signals be used for wireless communication. Fingertip Under-skin magnets lights Tiny neodymium magnets can be Some implants are inserted under the skin coated in silicon and implanted to augment the appearance of the body. into the fingertips. They respond The procedure involves cutting and to magnetic fields produced by stitching, and is often performed by tattoo © Thinkstock; Alamy; WIKI electrical wires, whirring fans and artists or body piercers. The latest version, other tech. This gives the wearer created by a group in Pittsburgh, even a ‘sixth sense’, allowing them to contains LED lights. This isn’t for the faint pick up on the shape and strength The implants allow the wearer to of heart – anaesthetics require a license, Grindhouse Wetware makes implantable of invisible fields in the air. pick up small magnetic objects so fitting these is usually done without. lights that glow from under the skin 087 MEDICINE Buzzing the brain Motor control Visual perception Visual information is processed at the If the current is applied over the Transcranial DC stimulation sends motor cortex, it increases back of the brain, and electrodes electrical signals through the skull excitability of the nerve cells placed here can augment our ability to enhance performance responsible for movement. to interpret our surroundings. Excitability The electricity changes the Working memory activity of the nerve cells in Stimulation of the front the brain, making them of the brain seems to more likely to fire. improve short-term memory and learning. Gene Wires A weak current of editing around one to two In 2013, researchers working in gene editing milliamperes is made a breakthrough. They used a new delivered to the brain technique to cut the human genome at sites of for 10 to 30 minutes. their choosing, opening the floodgates for customising and modifying our genetics. The system that they used is called CRISPR. It is adapted from a system found naturally in Cathode bacteria, and is composed of two parts: a Cas9 Current moves towards enzyme that acts like a pair of molecular scissors, the cathode completing Device and a guide molecule that takes the scissors to a the circuit. Changing the Powered by a specific section of DNA. placement of the simple nine-volt What scientists have done more recently is to electrodes alters the battery, the device hijack this system. By ‘breaking’ the enzyme effect on brain function. delivers a constant scissors, the CRISPR system no longer cuts the current to the scalp. DNA. Instead, it can be used to switch the genes on and off at will, without changing the DNA sequence. At the moment, the technique is still experimental, but in the future it could be used to repair or alter our genes. Anode The anode delivers current from the device across the scalp and into the brain. The CRISPR complex works like a pair of HACKING THE BRAIN With the latest technology we can decipher what the brain is thinking, and we can talk back DNA-snipping scissors The human brain is the most complex structure electrical pulses and deliver them to the optic weak currents that pass through skin and bone to in the known universe, but ultimately it nerve, and cochlear implants do the same with the underlying brain cells. Though still in communicates using electrical signals, and the sound in the ears via the cochlear nerve. And, by development, early tests indicate that this can latest tech can tap into these coded messages. attaching electrodes to the scalp, whole areas of have positive effects on mood, memory and other Prosthetic limbs can now be controlled by the the brain can be tweaked from outside. brain functions. The technology is relatively mind; some use implants attached to the surface Transcranial direct current stimulation uses simple, and companies are already offering the of the brain, while others use caps to detect kit to people at home. It’s even possible to make electrical activity passing across the scalp. one yourself. Decoding signals requires a lot of training, and “Prosthetic limbs can However, researchers urge caution. They admit it’s not perfect, but year after year it is improving. now be controlled by that they still aren’t exactly sure how it works, It is also possible to communicate in the other and messing with your brain could have direction, sending electrical signals into the the mind” dangerous consequences. brain. Retinal implants pick up light, code it into 088 DID YOU KNOW? Neil Harbisson is a colour-blind artist with an implanted antenna that turns colour into sound Exoskeletons and virtual reality COMMUNITY At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Miguel Nicolelis from Duke University teamed up with 29-year-old Juliano Pinto to showcase exciting new BIOLOGY LABS technology. Pinto is paralysed from the chest We spoke to Tom Hodder, technical director at down, but with the help of Nicolelis’ mind- controlled exoskeleton and a cap to pick up his London Biological Laboratories Ltd to learn more brainwaves, he was able to stand and kick the official ball. about public labs and the biohacking movement The next step in Nicolelis’ research has been Interview bio: processes at the molecular biological focused on retraining the brain to move the legs – and this time he’s using VR. After months of Tom Hodder studied medicinal level. I think that the biohacking controlling the walking of a virtual avatar with chemistry and is a biohacker working on community is orientated towards the their minds, eight people with spinal-cord injuries open hardware at London Biohackspace. sharing of these skills and knowledge in have actually regained some movement and feeling in their own limbs. an accessible way. Academic research is What is the London Biohackspace? published, but research papers are not Electrodes can pick up neural impulses, so The London Biohackspace is a biolab at the easiest reading, and the details of paralysed patients are able to control virtual the London Hackspace on Hackney Road. commercial research are generally not characters with their brain activity The lab is run by its members, who pay a shared unless it’s patented. More small monthly fee. In return they can use recently, much of the technology the facilities for their own experiments required to perform these experiments is and can take advantage of the shared becoming cheaper and more accessible, equipment and resources. In general the so it is becoming practical for experiments are some type of biohacking groups to do more microbiology, molecular or synthetic interesting experiments. biology, as well as building and repairing biotech hardware. Where do you see biohacking going in the future? Who can get involved? Is the lab open I think in the short term, the biohacking to anyone? groups are not yet at an equivalent level Anyone can join up. Use of the lab is to technology and resources to the subject to a safety induction. There is a universities and commercial research weekly meet-up on Wednesdays at institutions. However in the next five 7.30pm, which is open to the public. years, I expect more open biolabs and biomakerspaces to be set up and the Why do you think there is such an level of sophistication to increase. interest in biohacking? I think that biohacking groups will Generally, I think that many important continue to perform the service of problems, such as food, human health, communicating the potential of sustainable resources (e.g. biofuels) can synthetic and molecular biology to the be potentially mitigated by greater general public, and hopefully do that in understanding of the underlying an interesting way. Community labs are popping up all over the world, providing amateur scientists with access to biotech equipment © Thinkstock; Alamy; Ekso Bionics Exosuits can amplify your natural movement, while some models can even be controlled by your mind 089 090 BUILDING FUTURE YOU A closer look at some of the emerging tech that will allow you to customise your body Self-improvement is part of human nature, and community of amateur and professional and unlicensed. However, the field is opening up, technology is bringing unprecedented biotechnology tinkerers, there is increased and the possibilities are endless. possibilities into reach. Much of the development interest in augmenting the healthy human body. So, what does the future hold for a MEDICINE up until this point has had a medical purpose in The first cyborgs already walk among us, fitted customisable you? Medical implants could mind, including prosthetic limbs for amputees, with magnetic senses, implanted with monitor, strengthen, heal or replace our organs. exoskeletons for paralysis, organs for transplant, microchips, and talking to technology using their We could add extra senses, or improve the ones and light sensors for the blind. However, with the nervous systems. At the moment, many devices we already have. And, one day, we might be able advent of wearable technology, and a growing are experimental, sometimes even homemade to tap straight into the internet with our minds. Mind-controlled prosthetics Custom-build Eye cameras Using a film of electrode Retinal implants link light- sensors implanted on to the your body sensing electronics up to the brain, wearers will control back of the eye, detecting bionic limbs just by thinking. Technology of the future will images and sending the offer the opportunity to information to the brain. tinker with the human body like never before Smart lenses Contact lenses fitted with micro-electronics monitor vital medical information, and display an augmented reality overlay on your vision. RFID implants Radio frequency identification Fingertip magnets chips implanted under the skin Tiny neodymium magnets implanted store information, open doors beneath the skin allow people to lift and communicate with other small magnetic objects, and sense technology. invisible magnetic fields. Bionic organs Replacement organs will be grown from real human cells in the lab, or reconstructed using synthetic materials and electronics. Exoskeleton support Robotic exoskeletons support the wearer’s limbs, using hydraulics in place of muscles, and hinges in place of joints. Smart bandages Wound dressings will be equipped with sensors to monitor Interchangeable limbs healing and flag up Advanced prosthetics could the first signs of give amputees superhuman infection by turning abilities, and the option to fluorescent green. switch between designs to suit the situation. Electronic tattoos Gold-leaf temporary tattoos can be used as “Many devices touch sensors, colour-changing are experimental, indicators, and for Wi-Fi communications. sometimes even homemade” DID YOU KNOW? The oldest prosthetic is a wood and leather toe, found on an Ancient Egyptian mummy from 950-710 BCE Google is developing a contact lens that This RFID chip shows the coiled copper The Argus implant’s camera and The i-limb hand can be moved by gestures, apps, Ekso moves legs in response 091 © Shutterstock; Google; Touch Bionics; Illustration by Nicholas Forder; Ekso Bionics senses blood sugar by analysing tears antenna it uses to communicate transmitter signal to the optic nerve muscle signals or proximity sensors to upper body movement MEDICINE THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE How are we going to beat the world’s deadliest diseases? edical science has produced some tech and providing brand new solutions to we are developing technology that could allow M incredible solutions to challenging problems over the decades, from antibiotics to fight bacterial infection, to imaging age-old problems. In the hospitals of the future, augmented reality could allow surgeons to see through their our own genetics to be tweaked and changed on the go. The scientific community has access to a massive and rapidly expanding pool of data from technologies to look inside patients without patients, and contact lenses could monitor blood patients the world over, and as we dig deeper using a knife. It’s hard to predict what will sugar for diabetics. Prosthetic limbs linked into the biochemistry of illness, new ways to happen next, but science has recently opened directly to the nervous system could allow precisely treat disease are set to appear. some really exciting doors to the future of amputees to move and feel just by thinking, and One day, wearable tech and at-home test kits medical treatment. 3D printers could be utilised to create custom could monitor for the first signs of sickness, and Medicine is no longer just about biology and medical kit, or even fully working replacement custom treatments might be delivered based on drugs. Computing, engineering, organs, on demand. our own unique genetic and biochemical nanotechnology, quantum physics, and many We are learning how to retrain our own fingerprints, minimising side effects and more disciplines are leaking over into medical immune systems to fend off deadly diseases, and maximising our chances of recovery. 092 DID YOU KNOW? In 2014 scientists grew a whole organ, called a thymus, inside a mouse using stem cells How germs spread Preventing history’s biggest killers Vaccinations teach the immune system how to fight, before it encounters the disease Our natural defence against disease is our immune system. It’s an army of cells that work together to patrol the body and destroy anything that shouldn’t be there. It’s split into two parts, a fast-response ‘innate’ system, that wages war at the first sign of trouble, and a slow, specialised ‘adaptive’ system that delivers Body fluids Skin to skin contact a stronger and more focused attack. Blood, saliva, semen and breast milk can Some infections are quickly spread by The first time the immune system meets a new infection, it takes up to a week for the all carry disease direct contact specialised immune cells to appear. In this time, Liquids provide an excellent way for pathogens Chickenpox, cold sores, head lice and warts can the pathogen can multiply, and people can to travel from one place to another. Precautions all be transmitted by touching someone with become very sick. Vaccinations bypass this step by giving the immune system a chance to are always taken when dealing with body fluids the infection; the viruses, bacteria, or parasites train beforehand. in hospitals and labs, because contaminated simply move from one person to another. Some The first vaccine was developed by Edward body fluids can transmit diseases like mumps, of these examples can also survive on Jenner in 1796. He noticed that milkmaids didn’t catch smallpox; they were exposed to a similar hepatitis and HIV. inanimate surfaces for a short time. disease, cowpox, and their immune systems were better trained. Jenner tried infecting children with cowpox, and found that they too gained protection. Vaccinations have been developed against dozens of infectious diseases, and they are now being made to teach the immune system to fight other illnesses too. Food and drink Droplets Contaminated food and drink carry Pathogens can be transmitted short pathogens into the gut distances by drops of liquid in the air The acidity of the stomach provides some Tiny drops of fluid released by a cough or a protection against infection, but it can’t stop sneeze travel around a metre before they settle everything. Pathogens enter through the onto door handles, surfaces and skin. It’s an mouth, and either set up home in the digestive easy way for respiratory infections to spread. tract, or move into the body through its walls. Examples include colds, flu and rubella. Training the immune system Vaccinations are like a training program for When the vaccination has been injected, your When you encounter the real pathogen, your your immune system, giving it a sneak peek at immune system comes to have a look. It will immune system will be ready to respond. enemies that it might encounter in the future examine the parts of the pathogen and work Instead of spending time working out what to so that it can prepare in advance. They can be out the best way to attack, as though it were do, the memory cells left over from the made in different ways, but usually contain fighting the real thing. After the vaccine has vaccine instantly clone themselves, © Thinkstock inactive bacteria or viruses, or examples of been cleared up, some of the cells that fought it producing an army of cells that can clear the molecules that the pathogens make. remain in the body on patrol as ‘memory cells’. infection before you get sick. 093 MEDICINE The end of HIV 37 million In 2015, nearly 37 million people were living with HIV How do you hunt down a virus that’s hiding in your own immune system? uman Immunodeficiency Over half of people with HIV can’t access H Virus (HIV) hijacks the immune system. The virus gets inside, inserts its genetic code How hard is it to cure? HIV stitches its genome into to the system, into the genome of a cell, and genome of immune cells, so that carrying the HIV, treatment the two are permanently linked was destroyed, and replaced with transforms it into a factory to make together. Antiretroviral treatment donor cells. They had a genetic more of the virus. While this is can stop the virus from making mutation that made it harder for 1.1 copies of itself, but they can’t get HIV to infect them, and the patient million happening, the cell is unable to rid of it completely unless the was cured. function normally, and gradually as immune cells themselves are killed. Bone marrow transplants are more and more cells are taken over, This has been done once, in risky, however, and there aren’t the immune system is left seriously 2007. The Berlin Patient had cancer enough donors available, so it’s not and needed a bone marrow a practical solution to rid the world weakened. The result is known as transplant. His own immune of HIV altogether. people die as a result of Acquired Immune Deficiency AIDS each year Syndrome (AIDS). HIV is now treatable with a combination therapy that stops the virus from replicating. The amount of virus often dips so low in the blood HIV is transmitted through that the disease can’t be passed on. body fluids, including blood, Transmission from mother to child is also being eliminated with new semen and breast milk drugs. However, not everyone has access to treatment. 8 out of 10 pregnant women The gold standard for the future of with HIV receive HIV medicine would be a vaccine that treatment to can teach the immune system to minimise the risk HIV to their child neutralise the virus with a coating of antibodies. In theory, this could be used not only to prevent infection, but CD4 Cells HIV infects the also to stop the disease coming back immune system, in people who have some virus still crippling the hiding in their systems. AIDS body’s defences This is a huge challenge; the virus î Stands for Acquired Immune shape-shifts to avoid detection, and deficiency Syndrome HIV 40% the immune system doesn’t usually î Is the disease caused by HIV î Stands for Human respond. But new vaccines are being î Takes advantage of the Immunodeficiency Virus trialled all the time, and as our damaged immune system î Is the virus that causes AIDS understanding of HIV and the that is unable to fight it î It infects the immune system of people with HIV don’t immune system improves, we are î People die due to infection or î Infection compromises the know they’re infected inching closer to making it a reality. resulting cancer cells of the immune system Antiretroviral therapy stops the 1983 1987 Future Scientists discover that human The first drug A vaccine is virus replicating immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is treatment for HIV, developed to train the cause of acquired immune azidothymidine, the immune system deficiency syndrome (AIDS). is approved. to attack HIV. Condoms, HIV puts Timeline HIV testing, people at and risk of circumcision catching 1981 1985 1996 2007 Future help to other Men in California start Commercial Triple-drug therapy A single patient A drug is reduce diseases like to fall ill with unusual blood tests for HIV is introduced, in Berlin is cured developed to infections after their are invented, turning HIV by a pioneering reveal HIV transmission tuberculosis immune systems allowing screening infection into a bone marrow lurking in become weakened. to begin. long-term disease. transplant. dormant cells. 094 DID YOU KNOW? The highest death rates for heart disease are in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Can cancer be cured? 14 million Huge progress has been made over the past century, but what happens next? C ancer is an ancient disease; tumours has been immune system to recognise cancer cells, or a routine found in Egyptian mummies, and even in the blood or breath test could be developed to pick up the people are diagnosed fossils of dinosaurs. It happens when genes earliest signs of the disease. However, the likelihood of with cancer each year involved in growth and repair go wrong. Affected cells cancer increases with age, and with people living longer 8 make copy upon copy of themselves, and these new the incidence is rising. cells start to break away, travelling around the body and For those who do develop the disease, several million making yet more copies elsewhere. futuristic treatment options are already being people die of If cancer is caught early, it can already be cured. If the developed. Future humans could end up having their cancer each tumour is removed, the cancer is gone. However, once immune systems retrained and augmented, or they year the cancer has spread it is harder to treat, and the more might receive genetically engineered viruses designed it spreads, the less likely people are to survive. specifically to infect and kill the tumour. We might even Lung cancer is Stopping cancer before it really starts would be the be able to switch genes on and off inside tumour cells to the most best option. Vaccinations might be used to train the halt their growth. common type of cancer The future of cancer medicine in men Matching people to the right treatment could be the answer to controlling cancer Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women The older you are, the more likely you are to get cancer Group of patients Genetic testing Treatment matching Several people might have The patients are tested to find out Patients are matched with treatments brain cancer, but not all the exact genetic and chemical that specifically target the brain cancers are the same. makeup of their tumour. weaknesses of their own cancer. Cancer is not contagious, but Where is the cancer cure? it can be genetic Cancer gets a lot of research money, and thousands upon some cancer cells develop ways to avoid them. The big thousands of scientists are working to try and find the cure, so challenge is that everyone is different, and so too are where is it? If you can cut the tumour out before it has a everyone’s cancers. And tumours don’t just differ between Viral chance to spread, you can cure it, but if any cells have escaped people, they also change over time. The challenge is to find infections they need to be found. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy can out how they change, and how these different weaknesses can cause help to mop up stragglers, but they don’t always work, and can be targeted with treatments. some cancers 1880s 1950s Future The first mastectomy is Smoking is finally Personalised medicine The earlier performed, finally shown to cause lung becomes reality, with patients cancer is providing treatment for cancer, encouraging matched to treatments based breast cancer. millions to give up. on their genes. detected, Timeline the easier it is to treat 1846 1903 1949 1990s Future Lifestyle The invention of Radium is used to The first Cancer mortality A simple blood general anaesthetic treat skin cancer, chemotherapy drug starts to drop in test is developed changes could paves the way for the in what is the is approved. It is developed countries to pick up the prevent a third surgery to finally first example of nitrogen mustard, a as diagnoses and very earliest of cancers remove tumours. radiotherapy. WWII weapon. treatment improve. signs of cancer. 095 MEDICINE 10-18 Eliminating malaria This deadly disease is carried by mosquitoes, but work is being days it takes for malaria parasites to reproduce inside done around the world to wipe it out a mosquito ust one mosquito bite is enough to kill you in some Malaria parasites can’t reproduce without both J parts of the world. Inside the midgut of Anopheles mosquitoes, gametocytes from the plasmodium parasite mature and combine. These are the equivalent mosquitoes and humans, giving us a tantalising opportunity to eliminate them. One idea is to genetically modify colonies of mosquitoes and release them to of human sperm and eggs, and the result is hundreds of breed with their wild counterparts; this could be used newly formed parasites ready to infect their next victim. to introduce damaging genetic traits into the The parasites migrate up to the mosquito’s salivary population, either killing the parasites, or killing the glands, and when it feeds again they enter the human mosquitoes themselves. Another option is to develop bloodstream. They infect cells in the liver and begin to fungi that can infect and kill the insects. Malaria was first written divide, before spreading back into the blood. As they Other options for elimination include designing new about in Ancient China in continue to grow, the cells split open, releasing even insecticides to keep insect numbers down, and 2700 BCE more parasites and causing havoc for the body. developing a vaccine to halt transmission. 3.2 billion people live in regions where they could catch malaria Global elimination is tough The World Health Organisation first initiated an attempt to rid the world of malaria in 1955. The idea was to use a combined Infection The gametocytes mature and combine 400,000 attack, spraying houses to get inside the mosquito. Bite Gametocytes rid of the mosquitoes, and using The malaria parasite’s Parasites enter blood antimalarials to kill the parasites. equivalent of sperm as the mosquito feeds. They had some successes in people die of malaria each year areas where the climate was and eggs. moderate and mosquitoes thrive Infection cycle 70% only during certain seasons, but in other places the program didn’t work as well. of malaria Mosquitoes started to become resistant to pesticides, and the parasites resistant to of malaria deaths are children treatments. This, combined with Infection wars, political unrest, and More spread The parasites start under the age of 5 patchy access to resources, The mosquitoes pass to grow in the liver. meant that coordinating a global the parasite on. Malaria is caused attack against malaria became impossible. by parasites that In 2015, the WHO reissued infect humans their challenge. But today we and mosquitoes are facing even stronger versions of the parasite and vector, and new weapons are Spread Transfer needed to eliminate them. Mosquitoes catch the The parasites move Spraying houses parasite from the blood. into red blood cells. with insecticide is the best way to stop transmission 1880 1939 Future The parasite that causes The DDT pesticide is Malaria-carrying malaria is discovered in invented, allowing people to mosquitoes are wiped © Thinkstock 95 countries blood samples taken control numbers of out by genetically Last year reported from patients. malaria-carrying mosquitoes. modified insect mates. cases of Timeline malaria 1600s 1897 1951 2015 Future Peruvian tree bark is It’s discovered that Malaria is wiped out in The World Health The world is 214 Million used to treat malaria, eventually leading to the mosquitoes are able to transmit malaria from one the US after a government eradication program sprays Organisation endorses a new strategy to eliminate declared malaria free thanks to the eradication cases of malaria in 2015 modern drug quinine. person to another. millions of homes. malaria for good. campaign. 096 DID YOU KNOW? The earliest example of human cancer is a 1.7 million year old fossil with a bone tumour Halting heart Cardiovascular disease killed attacks and strokes Diseases of the heart How heart disease starts 17.2 million people in 2012 and blood vessels are the The slow accumulation of fat can lead to a deadly blood clot Heart attack world’s biggest killers symptoms include chest, arm and hen arteries and veins W become clogged with fat, rough plaques form and narrow the tubes. As the blood tries to 1 jaw pain, sweating and vomiting force its way through it swirls and Someone has twists, and more damage is done. The a stroke fatal blow comes when parts of the blockage break away. Clotting 2 2s every 2 seconds molecules in the blood interpret the roughness as a cut that needs to be There are over sealed. They start to build a clot, and 2.5 million heart 3 as the circulating blob gets larger, it attack and eventually becomes lodged in the stroke survivors tubes, cutting off the blood supply. in the UK The damage can’t always be 4 repaired, but the latest research could Men are more change that for the future. Stem cells likely to die of are cells that haven’t yet decided heart disease which part of the body to become. than women With some coaxing in the lab, they can be converted into new blood cells, new skin cells, or even new heart muscle. Harvard scientists have 1 Normal vessel 2 Disruption 3 Plaque 4 Clotting already made a life-size beating heart Healthy blood vessels When a blockage Fatty deposits in A clot starts to form have smooth internal appears in the the wall of the on the roughened by convincing stem cells to become walls, allowing the vessel, the blood blood vessel cause surface, and the A third of adults in the UK heart muscle and growing them on a blood to slip easily quickly becomes it to bulge, blood vessel have high cholesterol scaffold. In the future, custom organ around the body. backed up. narrowing the tube. becomes clogged. replacements could be made The most important artificially on demand. Why haven’t we cured it? risk factors are If this doesn’t work, another option Cardiovascular disease is difficult to people who suffer a stroke will die smoking, diet, is gene therapy, which is already treat once a catastrophic event has within a year. exercise and being trialled for heart failure. Genes happened; strokes and heart attacks In order to meanigfully improve alcohol intake deprive vital organs of oxygen, and treatment of cardiovascular disease, are delivered to the cells, telling them the affected tissue quickly dies. If we need to be able to repair or to make different molecules, and you have a heart attack outside of a replace damaged tissues, or we need Stroke potentially allowing the body to be hospital, you have just a one in ten to prevent it happening in the first chance of surviving, and quarter of place. Neither one is easy to do. symptoms reprogrammed from the inside out. include sudden weakness on 1930 1967 Future one side of The defibrillator is The first human heart Custom-grown the body, invented, allowing transplant is performed, replacement hearts are confusion and stopped hearts to be allowing damaged organs produced from people’s restarted with electricity. to be replaced. own stem cells. slurred speech Timeline 1899 1958 1960 1987 Future Pharmaceutical The first implantable The first heart The first cholesterol- Gene therapy is Heart disease and stroke are company Bayer pacemaker is bypass surgery was lowering statin drug used to reverse begin manufacturing installed, allowing performed to divert hits the market, the damage the first and second most a new drug called the heart to be blood around helping to prevent done by heart common causes of death aspirin in Germany. controlled. damaged vessels. heart attacks. attacks. 097 MEDICINE SAVING LIVES WITH 098 DID YOU KNOW? Some nanomaterials are naturally occurring, including volcanic ash, smoke particles and sea spray Youthful appearance Wrinkles could be prevented by nanoparticles that penetrate deep into the skin, transporting compounds to make skin smoother and plumper. Enhanced dental implants Connected Titanium dioxide Nanobots swimming in the nanotubes loaded with capillaries of our brains silver nanoparticles could could allow our thoughts surround implant and emotions to be material to improve uploaded to cloud servers. adhesion to the bone and Meet the protect against infection. minuscule Glaucoma treatment medics that Contact lenses containing nanoparticles could Heart repair could conquer periodically release beneficial drugs when placed onto Nanoparticles coated with sticky proteins could escort therapeutic drugs to incurable disease the eye, helping to manage symptoms. damaged arteries, repairing the elastic walls. hat if we could control entire systems W on the molecular level? What if inside your cells you had millions of helpers; tiny guardians tasked with clearing toxins from Improved oxygen supply Mechanical red blood cells known your body and keeping you in tip-top condition, as respirocytes could carry additional oxygen around the body removing pathogens before they have a chance to to improve physical performance. cause harm? This is one of the main goals of nanotechnology – an advanced field championed by scientists, engineers and mathematicians who are busy developing machines that would fit inside the eye of a needle. It may seem truly exceptional and perhaps impossible, but all living organisms rely on machines such as these. Some species of bacteria, for example, propel themselves along using a spinning tail called a flagellum, which is powered by a rotating motor built from a ring of proteins. This operates in much the same way as the Antiviral Viral infections could be Bone © SPL; Thinkstock; Pixelsquid mechanical variants we use in industry, but just kept at bay by nanoparticles regeneration on a much smaller scale. Our own cells are also that bind to viruses and stop Nanostructures could filled with dedicated machinery known as them from spreading. act as scaffolds to support bone repair organelles that are responsible for certain jobs after injury. including the assembly, packaging and transport of materials inside and outside of the cell. The ribosome is one such example of a complex machine that fits nicely inside a cell, where it Cancer targeting efficiently assembles proteins from genetic code. Cancer-fighting drugs So our bodies are already packed with natural could be guided to tumours by nanotech, but now the goal is to manufacture the nanoparticles capable artificial kind. of recognising the Synthetic structures are identified as pieces of cancerous cells. nanotechnology when they range in size from one Biocapsules Carbon nanotubes packed to 100 nanometres, so even at their largest they’re with insulin-producing cells 5,000 times smaller than this full stop. They’re could be inserted under the incredibly small pieces of tech! Nanotechnology skin, and the contents would be released when blood has a wide range of potential applications, sugar levels were high. particularly in medicine, where nanomachines 099 DID YOU KNOW? Silkworms produce stronger silk if they’re fed carbon nanotubes TYPES OF Eye of a needle NANOTECHNOLOGY What objects can we create by manipulating molecules and atoms? Much like natural nano-sized structures and molecules, synthetic pieces of nanotechnology are a diverse group. By using our knowledge of how atoms are arranged into structures, we can design and model different shapes with a wide range of properties. Nanotechnology can vary from relatively simple to immensely complex structures: some are used solely as protective housings with the responsibility of transporting drugs, and others have intricate mechanical actions such as mimicking a wheel spinning on an axle. Microscopic motors While not strictly nanotechnology, microscopic motors can serve as a stepping stone in order to develop even smaller structures. Once we can build small enough motors, they could theoretically power medical nanobots. Nanotubes These cylindrical structures can be just a nanometre wide, but reach lengths of 20 centimetres – that means they are 200 million times longer than they are wide! Elemental form Like graphite and They are built using diamond, nanotubes carbon that’s are a basic form of arranged in rings. carbon. They are used in heavy industry. Engineered nanomolecules “Nanotechnology Molecules can be modified and manipulated to build can vary from relatively custom nanomachines. In 2011, a team of simple to immensely researchers created the smallest-ever electric complex structures” motor, just one nanometre across, made from a butyl Sulphur methyl sulphide molecule. Carbon Hydrogen Human ovum 101 MEDICINE USES OF NANOMEDICINE Bacteria Silver nanoparticles can destroy certain species of How can nanotechnology be applied to help fight bacteria by interacting with their outer membranes, disease and save lives? causing structural changes that make this protective In medicine, artificially created molecules the layer degrade. size of proteins, which are able to slip in and out of the blood stream and individual cells, could be an Cell death incredibly useful tool for delivering drugs Without their outer throughout the body. Nanomotors could be used membrane, many bacteria (including E. coli, which can to direct helpful molecules to organs where cause food poisoning) are they’re needed. The choice of materials used to unable to survive. build these machines and structures also helps them to effectively achieve their function. Rings of carbon atoms – that assemble as long, thin nanotubes – provide strength and could be used as scaffolds to help repair bone, while nanoparticles filled with gold or silver can be used to destroy cancer cells or unwanted bacteria. Fighting infection with Repairing nanoparticles nerve cells Silver ions are effective tools for killing bacteria Our central nervous systems are filled with neurons, which are organised in an expansive network to send information and instructions efficiently all around the body. The ability of neurons to be able to carry information is dependent on the electrical signals that are sent along and between them. If the neurons are damaged, the circuit is broken – and this is often irreparable. Scientists are looking to carbon nanotubes for a way to repair this damage. By placing nanotubes in close contact with the neurons, Silver ion they are able to act as a scaffold, consequently Silver has antimicrobial allowing the neurons to grow and reform properties, and the element connections. In the future, this could be used is often incorporated into to develop treatments for neurological medical dressings and disorders such as Parkinson’s. equipment to help prevent and fight infections. 3 1 Drug delivery 2 Ensuring that therapeutic drugs reach their cell targets is no easy task when you’re dealing with a complex organism like a human. Drugs may not arrive at the right destination, and those that do may not be able to enter the cells. The use of 1 Nanotube mesh nanoparticles called liposomes – which are able to Nanotubes occupy space around the neurons. This carry drugs into cells – may be a way to overcome provides a scaffold for the neurons and helps to this obstacle. guide their growth. Liposomes surround the drug particles and help guide them to their destination. Once a liposome 2 Neuron connection makes contact with a cell, it is slowly engulfed in a Neurons have to be close to one another to process called endocytosis. The liposome usually communicate. They can send chemical signals to breaks down slowly inside the cell, but X-rays can each other across small gaps called synapses. be used to rupture the fatty layers more rapidly, so that they release their tiny parcels of drugs. 3 Regrowth In the presence of the nanotubes, neurons can grow Liposomes are nanoscale ‘bubbles’ made of phospholipids and re-establish contact with their neighbours. – the same molecules that make up our cell membranes 102 DID YOU KNOW? Nanoparticles of silver and gold were used by the Ancient Romans to decorate vases and chalices Fighting cancer with nanoparticles Surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are currently the three main ways of treating cancer. Surgery to remove tumours can be very effective, but it is not suitable for all types of cancer. Chemotherapy is also highly effective at killing cells, but destroys them indiscriminately, attacking both cancerous and healthy tissue, which can leave Nanoshields patients with severe side effects. Radiotherapy can The exterior surfaces of the be targeted at a particular region, but also carries nanoparticles are made of side effects and the risk of causing infertility. structures that can recognise Nanoparticles could be used to carry a sequence and bind to cancer cells. The of DNA into cancerous cells, resulting in the cells then engulf them. production of a toxic compound inside the cells that kills them. Nanoparticles like this have been successfully used in rats to attack brain cancer cells and shrink tumours, while leaving healthy tissue unharmed. It is hoped that the same technology could one day be used to fight the disease in humans, with few or perhaps even no negative side effects for the patient. Toxin production The nanoparticles disassemble and release a sequence of DNA. The cells begin to produce an enzyme that converts compounds into toxins. “Nanoparticles Explosion The toxins break the cells have been used to down and kill them, shrinking the tumour. The attack brain cancer surrounding healthy cells are left unharmed. cells in rats” Detecting disease with nanocantilevers Assembling structures on the molecular level can be very challenging, but one advantage is that small changes can have a large and detectable impact. In other words, adding single atoms or molecules can heavily influence their physical structure. This idea has been used by scientists to create nanocantilevers. These nano-sized beams are covered in antibodies – small, Y-shaped proteins that recognise specific Evidence Verdict molecules. Cancer cells secrete molecules that Cancerous cells act very differently from healthy cells and The nanocantilever is coated with antibodies that attach bind to corresponding antibodies, forcing the produce certain proteins in much larger amounts. This to the molecules secreted by cancerous cells. The bound © SPL; Sol90 beams to change shape. This concept could be leads to an abundance of certain molecules being molecules then distort the shape of the nano-sized used to quickly identify cancer in medical tests. released from the cell. beams, which informs doctors that cancer is present. 103 MEDICINE HOW TO BUILD A NANOBOT Two methods are used to make things at the nanoscale: top-down or bottom-up Bottom-up construction Assembling mini machines is no simple task, Complex structures, such as this especially when we’re talking about gears that only molecular gear, would only be able to achieve specific rotations if all contain a few thousand atoms! Currently there are the atomic parts were arranged two quite different proposed methods of very precisely, so bottom-up nanoconstruction: top-down and bottom-up. The assembly would be required. top-down approach involves starting with a bulk of atoms and shaving away the parts you don’t want, much like how a sculptor would carve away at a stone block until it assumed the form they wanted. Starting with a large amount of material makes this the more straightforward option, but every chunk that is cut away represents a considerable amount of waste, and the tools used for the task are so much larger than the final product that they are difficult to use accurately. The alternative is the bottom-up approach, which is mostly still in the theoretical stage. This method involves building the nanobot atom by atom, or combining atoms in a way that lets them interact and self-assemble into the shape we want, which is of course quite complex! But when you’re constructing controllable mechanical actions on the nanoscale, precision is everything, so the bottom-up approach will most likely take over in the future. Assembly A central column of atoms acts as an axle and is surrounded by other atoms that spin much like a wheel. The outer casing is formed Moving atoms of larger elements to If the outer casing is held still, reduce the number of the top central column can be atoms needed. rotated and used to spin the atoms between the shaft and external elements. Everyday nanotech It may seem futuristic, but nanotechnology is already here Sunscreen Self-cleaning Clothing Zinc oxide and glass Antibacterial silver titanium dioxide are A film of titanium nanoparticles can be common ingredients dioxide just a few incorporated into in popular sun- nanometres thick can certain fabrics that protection products. be applied to sheets of are used to make Many modern lotions glass, allowing the socks and sports now use zinc oxide material to clean itself. clothing. These nanoparticles that The coating breaks nanoparticles help to are less visible on down and loosens dirt, kill the bacteria that the skin than their which is then washed are responsible for larger counterparts. away by rainwater. sweaty smells. 104 DID YOU KNOW? The 2016 Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded for the development of nanomachines How nanobots can be used to fight disease The movie Fantastic Voyage told the story of a controllable robots that can navigate through the submarine holding a small crew that had been bloodstream to reach places we currently find hard shrunk down so small they could be inserted into to reach, and repair damage without the need for the bloodstream. Their mission: to clear a blood invasive surgery. They could break down hard clot that was lurking inside their human host. The plaques found on arterial walls or clear blood clots story seemed impossible at the time, but today we in the brain. are busily working toward our own mini-medics to help heal us from the inside. Medical nanobots are one of the most ambitious Nanobots could perform surgery on individual cells, areas of nanotechnology. The aim is to create tiny, minimising the damage to healthy tissue The future of Plaque removal The nanobot reduces the size of the Blood flow Red blood cells transport oxygen to nanomedicine plaque using flexible arms that bind to the individual components and tissues through the bloodstream. The force provided by the beating Nanobots could soon be roaming separate them from the bulk. heart pushes the cells through through our bloodstream and arteries at high pressure, which fixing unseen dangers increases when blood vessels are blocked by plaques. Cholesterol build-up When an arterial wall is damaged, calcium, cholesterol and other Injection components begin to build up and Nanomachines could form hard plaques. If left be injected to unchecked, plaques can suddenly wherever they’re rupture with fatal consequences. needed in the body via a hypodermic needle. Housekeepers Once large plaques have Swarm been cleared, the Many nanobots could be nanobots could be used administered at the same as routine cleaners to time to clear debris from break down any existing multiple arteries fat deposits before they simultaneously, or clear have a chance to cause Wireless control heart disease. large plaques even faster. © Alamy; Sol90; Thinkstock; Pixelsquid Medics are able to control the nanobots in real time using magnetism, with each individual robot having “The top-down approach is personalised magnetic markers for identification. similar to how a sculptor would carve a stone block until it assumed the form they wanted” 105 MEDICINE MRSA, a Staphylococcus aureus strain, is resistant to many antibiotics The antibiotic apocalypse Are we heading towards a future where infections are immune to treatment? e have a major problem. Since the code. Some tweaks aren’t useful, but very W dawn of humanity, we have been locked in a battle with microscopic organisms, and just when we thought we were occasionally, a mistake is made that helps one bacterium to outlast an onslaught of antibiotics for just a little longer than their neighbours. Antibiotics are used everywhere, from hospitals to intensive farms starting to win, they’re fighting back. When the course of antibiotics are finished, What needs to Bacteria cause some of the most devastating and all of the vulnerable bacteria are dead, this be done? human diseases, from typhoid fever to slightly stronger individual can carry on Ensuring that effective antibiotics are available tuberculosis, and until the 1920s, we were dividing, making a new colony that are all a for future generations is a mammoth task. We utterly defenceless. But when Alexander little bit better at avoiding the effects of the need to stop giving bacteria the opportunity to see our best treatments. Fleming ushered in the age of the antibiotic drugs. And if this happens time after time, you Vets and doctors are being urged to only use with his discovery of penicillin, we suddenly have a superbug on your hands. antibiotics if absolutely necessary, and to test had a powerful weapon. Worse still, bacteria are able to share useful their patients beforehand to check that the treatment will definitely work to kill the Antibiotics work by stopping bacteria from genes with their neighbours. And not just infection. Patients are being asked to always dividing, or by killing them outright. Thanks to members of their own species. They carry finish their full course of antibiotics, even if they them we can treat infections that were once useful snippets of genetic code in little rings of feel better, to ensure that any lurking bacteria have been cleared up. Farmers are being fatal, we can perform complex surgery, and we DNA called plasmids, and they can swap these encouraged to keep their livestock clean and can mass-produce food on an unprecedented like trading cards, passing resistance on to vaccinated rather than use antibiotics to control scale. But we have used them and used them others around them. disease. Governments and development organisations are under pressure to regulate and used them, and the bacteria have started Using these tactics, several strains of bacteria and monitor antibiotic use, and to make sure to learn. are now able to evade almost all of the people have access to the right antibiotics. And These little organisms can replicate in a antibiotics in our arsenal. We’re in the middle the medical research community are racing to find new drugs to fight resistant strains. matter of hours, and each time they do, they of a microscopic arms race, and the future of Rather than throw antibiotics at any infection, make tiny, accidental tweaks to their genetic medicine is hanging in the balance. we need to choose our battles carefully. 106 DID YOU KNOW? The first antibiotic, penicillin, was discovered by accident when a blob of mould got into an experiment Antibiotics shut cell factories K_\nXifeYXZk\i`X Bacteria have molecular Antibiotics work by attacking bacteria, but factories that make the Antibiotic Antibiotics the bugs are fighting back molecules they need to stop division survive. Some antibiotics Some antibiotics shut them down. interfere with bacteria’s genetic code, preventing Antibiotics them from dividing. burst bacteria Some antibiotics stop bacteria building their protective cell wall; the pressure builds and they pop. Bacteria neutralise antibiotics Some bacteria make Bacteria change molecules that stick to their molecules antibiotics and stop Antibiotics work by them working. clinging on to bacterial Bacteria pump antibiotics out molecules, so if the If antibiotics do get inside bacteria, some are bacteria can change able to pump them straight out again. their shape, they can Bacteria block sometimes escape. antibiotic entry Jlg\iYl^c`e\lg Some bacteria have developed ways to stop antibiotics from getting through their cell walls. Learn more Arm yourself with information Knowledge is the most powerful weapon we have against an antibiotic apocalypse, here are two top places to MRSA VRE MDR-TB KPC learn more: Methicillin-resistant Vancomycin-resistant Multi-drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae Staphylococcus aureus Enterococcus (VRE) are Mycobacterium carbapenemase- ›K_\Nfic[?\Xck_Fi^Xe`jXk`fe (MRSA) is the most immune to the effects of tuberculosis (MDR-TB) producing bacteria www.who.int infamous of all one of our most does not respond to the (KPC) are a relatively Working in over 150 countries, the superbugs. Regular powerful antibiotics. two most powerful new problem, first World Health Organisation are leading Staphylococcus aureus Vancomycin is usually anti-tuberculosis identified in the USA in the fight against antibiotic resistance. is a common type of reserved for the most drugs currently the early 2000s. They Their social media accounts are a great bacteria, normally serious of infections, available - rifampicin are very good at place for bite-sized news and updates. found harmlessly on including meningitis and isoniazid. Normal resisting treatment, and the skin. This bug first and MRSA. These treatment for TB also produce an enzyme ›9l^jXe[;il^j started resisting the superbugs were first involves a combination that allows them to www.antibioticresistance.org.uk effects of antibiotics as spotted in the 1980s, and of antibiotics taken for break down With funding from the British far back as the 1950s, have proven very good at 6 months, but if the carbapenem, a Government’s Department of Health, however, and MRSA developing resistance to drugs are given alone, powerful antibiotic © Thinkstock the National Electronic Library of itself first appeared any new antibiotics or stopped too soon, that’s one of our last Infection have made a one-stop hub of in 1962. thrown at them. resistance can develop. lines of defence. information about antibiotic resistance. 107 DID YOU KNOW? Liposomal doxorubicin is a cancer medicine that enters the body packaged inside fatty nanocapsules Nanomedicine The molecular machinery that keeps the hope to develop high-precision human body running is built on a nanotechnology that could repair or nanometre scale. Haemoglobin molecules replace damaged cell components. (the proteins that carry oxygen in your Nanomaterials have already entered the blood) are roughly 5 to 7 nanometres in clinic, where they are being used to make diameter – that’s about 10,000 times capsules that carry tiny packages of drugs smaller than the width of a human hair! into the body. Some capsules help to Nanomedicine attempts to interact with protect the drug from being broken down this miniature world using materials that as it travels to the right part of the body, measure less than 1,000 nanometres and others assist with targeting, ensuring across. Down at this tiny scale, scientists that the treatment gets to the right place. Nanomedicine in action Nanoparticles made from fatty molecules can help to guide drugs to the right part of the body, such as a tumour Tumour Protective coating Through the gaps These nanoparticles are made The nanoparticles are able from fatty molecules known to sneak through gaps in as lipids. They surround the the walls of blood vessels, drug and protect it as it entering the tissues. travels through the body. Endothelial cell Precision targeting Targeting molecules can Blood vessel be added to the nanoparticle to make it stick to molecules found Drug accumulation on the tumour cells. Due to the slow drainage into the lymphatic system, the nanoparticles start to Drug delivery build up inside the tumour. The nanoparticle is engulfed by the Tumour cell tumour cell, triggering the release of the anti-cancer drugs within. Drug Detecting diseases Miniature ‘lab-on-chip’ technology allows portable medical testing Inspired by the Star Trek Tricorder, the potentially even allowing people to Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE offers $10 monitor their own health at home. million (over £6.5 million) to a team able The competition has been running to design a portable medical analyser. since 2012, and the winner is due to be The aim is to be able to detect 16 announced in 2016. Finalists include the common diseases, such as anaemia, Scanadu Scout, which can monitor vital diabetes and tuberculosis, and to signs like pulse and blood pressure monitor five vital signs, including blood when held next to the head, and the © Thinkstock; Alamy pressure, heart rate and oxygen rHEALTH sensor, which can detect saturation. Technology like this could pneumonia or even Ebola from a tiny make diagnosis much simpler, drop of blood. 109 MEDICINE Regenerating damaged tissues Teixobactin stops bacteria making With incredible capacity for regeneration, stem cells the cell walls that they need to protect themselves have the potential to replace every cell in the body Most of the cells in your body are highly copies can rest, make more copies, or begin the can transform into any cell in the human body. specialised; each is dedicated to its individual process of transforming into a specialist cell. Given these incredible properties, it is no role, and once it has committed to becoming a The specialism that the stem cell chooses wonder that stem cells are receiving a lot of certain cell type, the decision is permanent. varies based on the signals it receives, and attention from the scientific community. Doctors Stem cells, however, have not yet chosen a depending on the type of stem cell that it is – an already perform stem cell transplants to replace specialism. Instead, they support growth and embryonic stem cell, or one of the many different lost bone marrow, and stem cells are used to repair, and are able to carry on making copies kinds of adult stem cell. Embryonic stem cells create skin grafts. In the future, it is hoped that of themselves long after most other adult cells are the most powerful; they are found in the they will be used to repair damaged tissues would have stopped dividing. Each of those developing embryo and, with the right signals, inside the body, or even to rebuild entire organs. Growing Method 2: Embryonic stem cells stem cells Method 1: Induced pluripotent stem cells These powerful stem cells are found in human embryos, but research is There are two main limited in many countries due to approaches to Adult cells can be ‘reprogrammed’ ethical concerns. producing human by scientists to behave like stem cells in the lab embryonic stem cells. Fertilised egg The cell that is formed Adult stem cells when a sperm and egg Adult stem cells have already combine must go on Blastocyst made some commitments, to produce all of the After around a and in this state, can only go cells in the body. week the embryo on to make certain cells. is a ball of cells Reprogramme surrounding a Adult stem cells can be cluster called the ‘reprogrammed’ back to an inner cell mass. earlier state using viruses, The stem cells in allowing them to transform this bundle have into many more cell types. the potential to become any cell in the body. Change culture conditions Culture Stem cells can be The embryonic stem encouraged to cells are harvested, become different and given signals types of specialised that tell them to adult cells by varying make copies of their conditions. themselves. Red Blood Cells Skins Cells Muscle Cells Neural Cells Gut Cells Advantages IS STEM CELL Disadvantages THERAPY A Stem cells could be used to repair tissues. GOOD IDEA? The long-term effects of using stem cells are not yet known. They could help to build entire organs for transplant. There are arguments There are ethical concerns surrounding the use of human embryos. for and against using Your own stem cells would be a perfect genetic match. stem cells for medicine There are many diseases that stem cells cannot treat. 110 DID YOU KNOW? It is predicted that 700,000 people in the United Kingdom will be living with late-stage AMD by 2020 Curing blindness Could stem cells be used to restore sight? The London Project to Cure Blindness is a collaboration between Moorfields Eye Hospital, University College London, the University of Sheffield, the British Government, and pharmaceutical company Pfizer. It aims to tackle a disease called ‘wet age-related macular degeneration’ (wet AMD), which causes rapid loss of central vision. The team are using stem cells to grow sheets of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells. These cells The treatment process form a brown-coloured layer on the back of the eye How stem cells can be transformed into specialised eye cells in the lab that helps to absorb scattered light, aiding with vision, and help to nourish and protect the rods and cones that detect light entering the eye. The 1Collect stem cells Stem cells are able to make copies of themselves indefinitely, 2Add growth factors The stem cells are given chemicals called growth factors, which encourage RPE cell layer can become damaged in wet AMD, so and are capable of transforming them to divide over and over to produce the team have used stem cells to grow a patch of into any cell in the human body, hundreds of identical clones. making them the perfect tool for new RPE cells to replace them. repairing damaged tissues. The new cells behave just like the real thing in the lab, so in 2015, the first patient received the new treatment as part of a clinical trial. The initial results of the two hour operation will not be 3Add differentiation factors Researchers can control what type of cell the stem cells will become by using different known until December 2015, and after that, a combinations of chemicals. This process is further nine patients will be tested to find out known as differentiation. whether this pioneering treatment is safe, and crucially, whether it works. In the future, the team hope to be able to use stem cells to grow new rod and cone cells, repairing damage to the light- sensing machinery of the eye. What is age-related Retina macular degeneration? Macula Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of sight loss in adults the UK, affecting more than half a million people. The most common type is ‘dry’ AMD, caused by the breakdown of light-sensitive cells at the back of the eye, but people can also have more aggressive ‘wet’ AMD, caused by abnormal blood vessel formation. 4 Implant the cells The layer of new retinal pigment epithelium cells are implanted into the Both types lead to a loss of central vision. back of the eye using a special patch. Optic nerve 5After treatment It is hoped that this treatment will help to restore some central vision to patients with age-related macular degeneration. “The specialism that the stem cell chooses © Alamy; Thinkstock varies based on the AMD doesn’t cause complete blindness, but affects the central vision, leaving only the edges intact signals it receives” 111 MEDICINE Defeating superbugs If we are going to survive future infections, we need to tackle antibiotic resistance Just like humans, bacteria have variations in antibiotics has finished, they can then go on to repeats, and there are now several strains of their genes that give them slightly different create an entire colony with the same genetic bacteria that are able to resist the effects of some of characteristics. This means that some bacteria advantages. The antibiotic you took before will no our most powerful drugs. Even more worryingly, will succumb to antibiotics faster than others. If the longer be effective in treating the infection. The antibiotic resistance genes can be passed from one more hardy bacteria survive until the course of more antibiotics are used, the more this cycle bacterium to the next, and even between species. Antibiotic resistance How do bacteria manage to survive high doses of our most powerful medications? 1Different genes Like us, individual bacteria from the same species can have slightly different 2 Antibiotics Antibiotics kill bacteria or stop them dividing, and they can affect both ‘good’ 3Some survivors Some bacteria have genetic traits that help them to survive antibiotic treatment, 4Sharing genes Resistant bacteria can sometimes pass their genes on to neighbouring genetic profiles. and ‘bad’ bacteria. so they can continue dividing. bacteria, giving them resistance too. How it spreads Antibiotics Every time antibiotics are used, Overuse of antibiotics in people and bacteria have the chance to adapt. animals is driving antibiotic resistance Use in animals Antibiotics are widely used Use in people to prevent and treat illness Many people are prescribed in domestic livestock. antibiotics when they do not really need them. Hospital acquired infection Uncooked meat Antibiotic resistant bacteria Antibiotic resistant can be transferred in hospital bacteria can turn up on on unwashed hands, or on meat, and can spread if surfaces like door handles. not properly handled and cooked. Infection in the community In the community, antibiotic resistant bacteria can spread by direct contact or by contact with surfaces. Contaminated veg Some antibiotic resistant bacteria may end up on the produce grown in the contaminated manure. Infected fertiliser Antibiotic resistant bacteria from animals can be found in their faeces, which is used as fertiliser for vegetables. 112 DID YOU KNOW? One of the best things you can do to combat antibiotic resistance is to wash your hands thoroughly Teixobactin The first new antibiotic discovered in 30 years! Personalised medicine In the future, treatments will be designed for In 2015, scientists unveiled Teixobactin – a new antibiotic that has the potential to combat fatal your unique genetic characteristics infections such as pneumonia and The genetic differences that toward a time when treatments tuberculosis. This latest discovery was found in the same source of make us all unique also affect could be personally matched to many other antibiotics – soil – how we respond to medical each patient. Steps are already where it is produced naturally by treatment, and the genetic being made with this kind of other bacteria. It marks a huge step in the bid to control drug- makeup of bacteria and viruses precision medicine in the resistant strains of superbugs. directly impacts their reaction to treatment of cancer, where different drugs. Armed with an genetic differences in the understanding of the genetics tumour cells play a huge role in driving these different whether or not different responses, we are moving treatments will work. Matching medicines to genetics People have different genes, so they respond differently to the same drugs Patients awaiting treatment Different responses Tailored dosage These people all have the same cancer, Genetic differences affect how long it The patient can be given a dosage that but their genes are subtly different. takes to clear the drug from the body. matches their genetic makeup. Teixobactin stops bacteria making the cell walls that they need to protect themselves £10 million Normal drug clearance Gene version one Normal dose prize to solve Most patients can clear the drug quickly from their bodies. A blood test identifies the patients as having the gene for normal clearance. The patients that will clear the drug quickly are given a normal dose. antibiotic resistance The 2014 Longitude Prize encourages both amateur and professional scientists to develop a test that can be used to help doctors choose the right antibiotic quickly and cheaply. Ensuring that we only take antibiotics when we need them, and that we are only given ones that will work on our specific infection, is crucial if we want to slow antibiotic resistance. Slower drug clearance Gene version two Medium dose If the drug is cleared slowly, it can build The blood test reveals a different gene, The patients that clear the drug more up in the body, increasing side effects. that gives a slower drug clearance. slowly are given a lower dose. © Dreamstime; Thinkstock The Longitude Committee will judge entries every four months Poor drug clearance Gene version three Low dose A few patients clear the drug so slowly The gene identified in these patients The patients that struggle to clear the until the end of 2019 that normal doses become dangerous. means the drug will clear very slowly. drug are given a small dose. 113 MEDICINE Printing body parts The future holds custom-printed drugs and prosthetics, and even replacement body parts Plastic 3D printers are a natural fit for creating prosthetics, but some of the most exciting medical 3D printers use a different kind of ‘ink’. Using precision techniques, scientists are working on combining different medicines into one compact pill. Different ingredients could be included in the printer to control when each drug is released, and custom pills could be printed for each patient. This goal is still decades away, but printers could be used to make vitamin supplements much sooner. 3D printers can also be used to create custom surgical Gel medium implants, from plates, to replacement joints, to scaffolds The gel medium used to encourage cells to grow into new tissues. These can be added separately, or printed structures can either be long-lasting or soluble. mixed directly However, 3D printers don’t just produce artificial body with the cells. parts; they are also able to recreate the real thing. Some 3D printers are designed to print with living human cells, Bioink The living cell forming sheets of tissue that could be used as grafts to mixture, known as repair damage. Researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for ‘bioink’, is stored above the printer Regenerative Medicine, North Carolina, are also working in a syringe. on printing cells directly on to the body to repair wounds. Printing entire organs is the ultimate goal, but whether it is actually possible is a topic of debate among scientists. 1Computer control The shape of the final printed structure is first mapped out on a computer, providing a template that can be used by the printer to construct the real thing. 3D medicine Printed medical supplies are on their way, and some are already available 3D printed drugs Replacement organs Prosthetics Dentures 114 DID YOU KNOW? A doctor in Gaza has designed a 3D-printed stethoscope that can be made for less than £2 ($3) 2Printing the cells The printer lays 3Cell growth The framework of cells are incubated and Remove gel The gel is designed so that it can be removed Helping people down living cells allowed to grow. They once the cell structure in layers of nutritious gel. It follows the programmed fill in the gaps left by the printer, forming a functioning structure. is complete. to walk again pattern for each The future of medicine is not just about biological advancements – layer to build a robotics, prosthetics and complex electronics are set to play an framework of increasingly important role in health care. Existing medical prosthetics the tissue. are able to respond to nerve impulses or muscle movements in the body of the wearer, and now research teams are plugging medical aids into the brain. Brain-to-tech interfaces read the electrical patterns of the brain. These can be recorded across the scalp using an electroencephalogram (EEG), and the patterns can be decoded by a sophisticated computer algorithm. A team at the University of California, Irvine, have developed a system that monitors signals from the brain, and transforms them into a series of electrical pulses. The pulses travel down wires attached to the muscles in the legs – effectively doing the job of the spinal cord. The technology is still in development, but in early tests it enabled a man with a spinal cord injury to walk for the first time in seven years. Similar interfaces are also being trialled for use with prosthetics, and scientists are even working on sensors that can recreate the sensation of touch. EEG Electrodes record the electrical Electrical activity activity across the Gel layers When the wearer thinks scalp, picking up the Layers of gel support the about walking, electrical patterns generated cells, and provide them activity in the brain makes by the brain. with an environment that recognisable patterns. encourages growth. Blood vessel Processor A computer The final product of this programme printer is a functioning blood vessel. interprets signals Harness from the brain and and frame creates a pattern The harness and of signals to send frame bear some on to the legs. of the weight of Living cells the wearer, and The printed cells provide stability. divide in response to growth factors in the surrounding gel. Electrodes Electrodes attached to the knees deliver Gyroscopes electrical The position and illustration by Nicholas Forder impulses into the 4Transplant The printed tissue is then transplanted muscles that move the legs. movement of the legs is monitored by sensors into the body. If the on the ankles. patient’s own cells were used, it will be a perfect match. © Alamy; Rex Features Skin grafts Medical equipment Splints, casts and braces Bone implants 115 MEDICINE Vaccines of the future The immune system fights Painful needles could be replaced with harmless silicon infections much more efficiently if patches in the future it has encountered them before Most vaccines are made from a weakened or Painless injections inactivated form of the pathogen, or even just some of The Vaxxas Nanopatch is one square centimetre (0.2 square inch) of silicone, coated in around 20,000 its parts. These are injected into the body along with microscopic projections. These spikes are too small to see, but the end of each one is coated in vaccine. chemicals known as ‘adjuvants’, which help to get the immune system moving. The infection never takes hold, but as the immune system works to clear the vaccine, it develops highly targeted weaponry that can be used to fight the real thing. Silicon patch The patch is made from These types of vaccinations have changed the world. silicon, and placed on the Smallpox was eradicated in 1980 after a vaccination skin using a specially designed applicator. programme, and vaccines keep dozens of other infectious diseases at bay, but new techniques are being developed to take this protection even further. ‘Recombinant viral vector’ vaccines hijack viruses and use them as vehicles. illustration by Nicholas Forder Viruses inject their genetic information into cells, but lls using genetic engineering scientists can delete the genes in ce ead sk that make them dangerous and replace them with D something useful. Using this technique, harmless viruses r) laye are being created to carry training materials into the ter skin u body to teach the immune system how to fight infections, is (o erm or even non-infectious diseases like cancer. Epid yer) s kin la A similar technique, known as DNA vaccination, er (inn directly injects genetic information into the muscle ermis D (usually attached to something like microscopic gold Immune cells beads). These genes carry the instructions to make The vaccine is delivered Projections Under the skin molecules found on infections, allowing the immune straight to white blood Instead of one large The Nanopatch still cells beneath the skin, needle, the patch uses penetrates the skin, but system a sneak peek before it has to encounter the helping to kick-start the thousands of the microprojections cause real thing. immune response. microscopic projections. much less disruption. A vaccine for HIV? Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida are designing a vaccine that could help to prevent HIV infection. Their new treatment blocks the virus when it tries to stick to human cells, and has stopped HIV taking hold in animals HIV Still dangerous Tail Like other viruses, Human HIV can still stick to CCR5. The long tail Immunodeficiency Virus contains a fragment (HIV) needs to find its of CCR5, blocking way into a living cell to the binding site. reproduce. CD4 HIV HIV gets inside cells by holding on to a molecule called CD4. gp120 CCR5 HIV enters cells Antibody Modified Holding on to CD4 using a structure Antibodies – the antibody allows HIV to stick called gp120, immune system’s A modified antibody to another which interacts homing missiles – can prevents HIV getting molecule called with molecules on be adapted in the lab to close to CD4. CCR5, gaining the surface of block the part of gp120 entry into the cell. immune cells. that sticks to CD4. 116 DID YOU KNOW? In October 2015, the first malaria vaccine was approved for use by the WHO, pending further assessments A needle-free cure for Ebola How a nasal spray could protect against one of the world’s most deadly diseases The current Ebola outbreak We took out the DNA from the cold virus that in West Africa has taken the allowed it to replicate and make us sick, and lives of over 10,000 people replaced it with the sequence of the protein that so far, but finally a cure is covers the outside of the Ebola virus. We figured on the horizon. For the past if we could get an immune response against seven years, Dr Maria that protein, the virus is pretty much dead in Croyle and her team at the the water and can’t make someone sick. University of Texas have been working on a vaccine that offers long-term Why does it take so long to develop a vaccine? protection against the deadly virus, and their It’s great to rush something out to the people latest tests show that it has a 100 per cent that need it, but if there is any chance that it success rate in primates. may not be safe, that could completely destroy a The vaccine, which is inhaled through the vaccine that may otherwise be very good. So nose instead of injected, could enable fast that’s why there is something called the ‘three control of future outbreaks and revolutionise animal rule’. Essentially you have to test the the way life-saving drugs are produced. It’s just vaccine in three animal models that reflect the cuts or abrasions in the skin – much faster than one of the incredible discoveries explored in human disease. Throughout the whole process, an injection does. National Geographic’s new series, not only did we look for the fact that there’s a Breakthrough. We spoke to Dr Croyle to find out good immune response, we also looked for What stage is the vaccine at right now? more about her work and what the future holds toxicities that could cause a problem. It’s ready to go. We’re currently in the process of for vaccines. talking with two major companies that have What are the most important benefits of a the resources to produce it on a large scale and How did you develop the Ebola vaccine? needle-free vaccine? can really help to get it to the people who need I was contacted by two scientists who were First A lot of places affected by the Ebola outbreak it most. We really hope within the next year it Responders to many of the Ebola outbreaks and are very isolated villages where they are not will be available. very interested in my project to develop a used to people that aren’t part of their culture. It needle-free vaccine. I spent two months in their isn’t acceptable for someone outside of that to How do you think the process of producing laboratory, where they had the genetic material go after them with a needle. Plus, the nasal vaccines will change in the future? for Ebola, and we developed the vaccine, which spray alerts the immune system to the areas The way we stabilise the vaccine is unique and is essentially a cold virus called the adenovirus. where one would be exposed to Ebola – through we think it will change the way certain vaccines that need refrigeration are produced. The needle-free Ebola In our studies with mice and guinea pigs, we vaccine is inhaled through found that if we placed the vaccine under the the nose instead of injected tongue, it seemed to work really well. So we stabilised the vaccine in this thin, flexible film that almost looks like a fruit rollup. This way, we found that we could store it at room temperature for at least three years. We could then simply put it in an envelope, ship it to where it was needed and once it got there, add water to the sheet of vaccine and in minutes it could be used as a nasal spray. Breakthrough is the ground-breaking series about some of the world’s leading scientists and how their cutting-edge innovations and advancements will change our lives in the immediate future and beyond. It is currently © Thinkstock airing on Sundays at 10pm on the National Geographic Channel. 117 SPACE 136 Farming on alien planets 130 Spaceport America Living on 138 the moon 118 120 120 Life on Mars Could there ever be human populations on Mars? Could we live on Mars? 128 Osiris Rex This mission will bring back a chunk of asteroid 130 Inside Spaceport America Take a peek at the world’s first commercial spaceport 132 Traveller’s guide to the Solar system Want to go on holiday in space? Here are our tips 136 Farming on alien planets How could agriculture survive on other planets? 137Rockets of past, present and future Take a look at how far space travel has come 138 Living on the moon Discover the pros and cons about moon colonies 137 Rockets of the future 128 Path of the Osiris Rex 119 SPACE DID YOU KNOW? Mars may now be coming out of an ice age, as there is evidence that its polar ice caps are melting n September 2016, SpaceX founder Elon Musk rover, will be endeavouring to answer this I announced a bold plan to colonise Mars with humans. It made headline news around the world, and while there are understandably some question. These two rovers are an exciting precursor to what looks set to be the era of Mars exploration. critics, it has once again raised the prospect of At the moment, NASA is hard at work on a new exploring Mars. spacecraft and rocket that will take people to Today, Mars is a barren and inhospitable world. Mars in the 2030s. Their goal is to further the With an atmosphere that’s 95 per cent carbon exploration of the human species and, perhaps, dioxide, temperatures as low as -153 degrees create a permanent base on Mars. Celsius and no magnetic field, it’s not exactly a Then Musk came along in September 2016 and habitable location. But several billion years ago, threw a spanner in the works. He said he was we’re pretty sure Mars had vast amounts of water. working on a giant rocket that, beginning in the We can see evidence for this in what appear to be 2020s, would start launching people 100 at a time valleys carved by rivers, empty lakebeds and to Mars, with the goal of a million people settled even coastlines. there by the turn of the century. The big question remaining about Mars is Mars is back on the agenda, and even if there whether life could have existed there, or still does. has never been life there before, there soon will It is unclear how long the planet had surface be: humans are homing in on the Red Planet. water for, and it may not have been long enough for life to thrive. But it’s possible that primitive, “We’re pretty sure The Mars 2020 rover will search microbial life might have taken hold. Two upcoming missions, the European Mars once had vast for signs of microbial life on ExoMars 2020 rover and the American Mars 2020 amounts of water” the Red Planet Mars then Water A thick atmosphere and magnetic No magnetic field Without a magnetic field, the and now field may once have allowed water to exist on the surface. surface of Mars is subjected to intense solar and cosmic radiation. How has the Red Planet changed over the past 4 billion years? Thin atmosphere Today, Mars has a relatively thin atmosphere, making the pressure too low on the surface for liquid water. Coast Scientists have recently observed what appear to be © NASA; Thinkstock ancient coastlines on Mars. Martian seas No surface water Recent evidence suggests the Any water that was once on northern hemisphere of Mars the surface has long since once had more water than boiled away, but some may Earth’s Arctic Ocean. remain underground. 3.7 TO 2.9 BN YEARS AGO 2.9 BN YEARS AGO TO PRESENT TODAY Hesperian Amazonian Present day Much of Mars’ surface water turned Over the past few billion years, a thinning Mars is now a cold and barren to ice as temperatures dropped atmosphere left much of the planet smooth, world, with only hints of its during this period. dry and devoid of geologic activity. ancient water remaining. 121 SPACE Robots Searching for signs of life on Mars How the upcoming ExoMars and Mars 2020 rovers will study the Red Planet How we’re using PanCam robotic explorers to uncover the Red Planet EXOMARS This panoramic camera will be used to image and map the terrain on Mars. In July 1965, NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft Infrared Spectrometer conducted a flyby of the Red Planet, returning the for ExoMars (ISEM) Working with the panoramic first ever images of the Martian surface. Since camera, ISEM will use infrared to then, we have learned a huge amount from our select targets for further analysis. robotic missions – and perhaps it won’t be too long until humans are there, too. Adron This instrument will search When we first started sending missions to Raman Laser for subsurface water and Mars, scientists were unsure what they’d find. Spectrometer help to choose suitable Using a laser, this instrument But over time, we have been able to paint a will attempt to find organic targets for drilling. picture of what this world once looked like. compounds and signatures of The goals of our missions have changed too, life inside samples. from those of initial discovery, to more refined searches for life and water. NASA’s Viking landers arrived in 1976 and were the first dedicated probes to search for life. Results were inconclusive, but a fire was stoked in Martian exploration by returning the first images from the surface itself. However, following several Close-up Imager This system of cameras failed attempts, it would be another two decades will help take high- until the next successful Mars mission. NASA’s resolution images of Mars Global Surveyor launched in 1996, and rocks and features with scientific interest. between 1998 and 2006 it extensively mapped the surface and provided much of the data needed for later missions. Excitingly, it also provided evidence for water ice on Mars. Our first rover arrived in 1997. Sojourner analysed rocks on Mars and found similar features to Earth. In 2004, the wildly successful Spirit and Opportunity rovers also arrived, with the latter still active on the surface today. In 2012 we said hello to the Curiosity rover, which landed in Gale Crater, and has since discovered this location likely contained an ancient lake. 2014’s MAVEN mission, meanwhile, has helped us discover how solar winds destroyed the Martian atmosphere. Drill But there’s still much more to learn – and that’s A drill on board will collect where ESA and NASA’s amazing next generation samples from several soil types, reaching a maximum of Martian rovers comes in. depth of two metres. Mars Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies This instrument will help A history of water on Mars study the mineralogy of rocks encountered by the drill. How we’ve painted a picture of a once habitable world CANYONS – 1971 RIVERS – 1976 SALTY – 1997 Mariner 9 Viking 1 and 2 Pathfinder NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft found a The Viking landers found Pathfinder found that temperatures vast canyon on Mars and beamed back evidence that rivers of water had on Mars were high enough to images of the planet’s south pole. spread far across the surface. support salty liquid water. 122 DID YOU KNOW? Data from Mars Odyssey suggested there was enough ice under the surface of Mars to fill Lake Michigan twice Methane on Mars MARS 2020 In 2014, NASA’s Curiosity rover had discovered a temporary increase of methane in its location on Mars. This hinted at – but does not prove Mastcam-Z This advanced camera will – the presence of biological processes. RIMFAX take panoramic images of An instrument on board the rover called This ground- Mars, and work out the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) ‘sniffed’ the penetrating radar will mineralogy of the atmosphere over the course of 20 months. In try to work out what surrounding surface. two of those months, there were spikes of is going on under the methane that were ten times larger than the Martian surface. average in other months. This suggests there was a localised methane source. There are several possible causes, including the interaction of rock and water underground. But there could be a biological reason, perhaps subsurface microbes releasing methane. It raises the possibility that some basic life Curiously familiar SuperCam may still exist The Mars 2020 will be This instrument will be able to on Mars today. based on the design of the detect organic compounds in Curiosity rover shown here. rocks from a distance. Curiosity found spikes in methane levels on Mars Mars Environmental PIXL This instrument will allow for Dynamics Analyzer a more detailed analysis of the These sensors will measure the chemical composition of temperature, wind speed and Martian soil than ever before. more on the surface of Mars. Mars Organic Molecule Analyser The biggest instrument on ExoMars, MOMA will directly try to find biomarkers in MOXIE samples collected by the drill. This intriguing instrument will attempt to create oxygen on SHERLOC Mars from its carbon “NASA’s Viking This instrument will use an ultraviolet laser to search for dioxide, with an eye on future manned missions. landers were the organic compounds on Mars. first probes to search for life” Hidden water There could be ice or even liquid water trapped under the Martian surface Clues Geological features on the surface suggest Mars once had rivers, lakes and seas. MAVEN is NASA’s most Reservoirs recent spacecraft to be Mars’ surface is barren, © NASA/JPL; SPL sent to Mars but remnants of ice could be trapped underground. LIQUID – 1999 ICE – 2001 STREAM – 2012 Mars Global Surveyor Mars Odyssey Curiosity Images from the Mars Global Surveyor This probe found that there could Curiosity has found that its landing site between 1999 and 2001 suggested liquid be huge deposits of ice and water within the Gale Crater may have been an water may still be flowing on Mars. below the surface of Mars. ancient stream bed. 123 SPACE Getting to Mars “Elon Musk has revealed his bold plan How we’re preparing for manned to get to Mars” missions to the Red Planet The rockets To get beyond Earth’s orbit, you need a very big rocket. For the Apollo missions to the Moon, we Practising on the ISS had the Saturn V, which remains Long-duration stays aboard the the most powerful rocket ever International Space Station (ISS) are built. But for missions to Mars, helping prepare crews for Mars. These things are going to need to get stays normally last six months, but in bigger – and better. 2015, an American astronaut and First up is NASA’s Space Russian cosmonaut spent an entire Launch System (SLS). Measuring year on the station, providing crucial 117 metres in height, this data on how humans will cope with heavy-lift rocket will launch the longer spaceflights needed for astronauts and cargo to Mars. Its Mars missions. first test flight is not scheduled until 2018, though, and questions remain over how it will be used. More recently, SpaceX founder Elon Musk revealed his bold plan to get to Mars with his SLS Rocket Interplanetary Transport System NASA’s Space Launch (ITS). At a height of 122 metres, System will enable humans Musk wants to use this to to explore destinations colonise Mars with a million beyond the Moon. people by the turn of the century. It is likely that Russia and China will also reveal rockets bound for Mars over the coming decades. Will SpaceX’s Interplanetary Transport System deliver on its promises? NASA’s crew capsule The Orion spacecraft is NASA’s answer to launching astronauts from Earth and returning them from Mars. It will house up to six astronauts, taking them into Earth’s orbit where they will likely dock with another larger habitat, which they will use for the journey to Mars, although this has yet to be finalised. PRESENT-2024 2018 2023 International Space Station Exploration Mission-1 Asteroid Missions to the ISS will continue until SLS and an unmanned Orion Redirect Mission 2024, monitoring how humans cope capsule will launch together for By 2023, NASA plans to send humans with spaceflight. the first time in 2018. to a captured asteroid in lunar orbit. 124 DID YOU KNOW? No humans have left Earth’s orbit since December 1972, when Apollo 17 made the three-day journey to the Moon HI-SEAS uses a dome in Hawaii to Simulating a Mars mission simulate Mars missions On 28 August 2016, six people emerged from a two-story dome in Hawaii, having spent a whole year in isolation. Why? They were simulating what it might be like to live on Mars under similar conditions in the future. The mission, called HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation), was part-run by NASA to prepare for its planned manned missions in the 2030s. During the experiment, the team spent their entire time inside the dome, having to don ‘spacesuits’ to venture outside, just as explorers will have to on future Mars missions. Their communications to Earth were also delayed by 20 minutes – the same lag Martian explorers will experience. Although there’s no substitute for actually being on Mars, the goal of this programme was to see how humans would cope with isolation. NASA’s missions to Mars may last three years in total, including 500 days on the surface – a long time away from Earth and other human contact. Deep space habitats Getting to Mars will take up to nine months, so astronauts will need something larger than a small shuttle to live in. This is likely to be a multi-roomed spacecraft similar to the ISS, and will require shielding to protect astronauts from cosmic radiation. Robotic helpers Images from orbiters and data from rovers at Mars will be used to pick a landing site for the manned missions, with a number of candidates already being discussed. Once humans reach Mars, probes can also be used as relay satellites to communicate with Earth. Ion engines The spacecraft that takes humans to Mars will likely use some form of solar electric propulsion, or ion engines, to gradually accelerate and decelerate the spacecraft. This will help save on fuel, leaving more room for cargo and reducing the mass needed at lift-off from Earth. Snagging an asteroid NASA is planning a robotic mission to collect a © NASA; SpaceX; Illustration by Adrain Mann chunk of an asteroid and redirect it into lunar orbit. Astronauts would then be sent to explore it and practise technologies and techniques they would need on Mars missions. However, some deem the mission unnecessary, and it is currently being reviewed. 2030 2033 2039 The Moon Phobos Mars By 2030, NASA wants to NASA may launch a crewed By the end of the 2030s, be conducting regular mission to the Martian moon NASA plans to send humans missions to lunar space. Phobos in around 2033. to the surface of Mars. 125 SPACE Humans on Mars “People have long dreamed of turning What will we actually do when we get to the Red Planet? Mars into an Earth- Of all the aspects of sending people to Mars, what soil. This will provide a barrier against cosmic like world” life will actually be like there is the most and solar radiation, keeping the crews healthy. speculative of the lot. That’s not to say people We know there is a lot of water ice locked at the The dome haven’t thought about it, but no one yet knows for Before a crew arrives, robots poles and under the surface of Mars, so making turn the water into ice, and sure how humans will survive there. use of this will be important. Depending on how create a layered dome that What seems likely, though, is that the first successful the Mars 2020 and ExoMars rovers can house people. missions to Mars will involve telerobotics. This are, it may be that there is enough water will see humans orbit Mars, perhaps living on the underground to support a small Martian colony. Martian moon Phobos, and operate rovers on the This water could be purified into drinking surface. Without the communications delay that water, or broken down into its constituent Earth-controlled rovers suffer, this could allow for elements to make fuel. much more rapid exploration of the surface. With humans on Mars, we will be Eventually, though, humans will set foot there. able to explore the surface like never If Elon Musk is to be believed, these humans before. Gone will be the days of will be self-sustaining, living off the land and tentative robotic footsteps; we using clever equipment to create oxygen, water, will be able to study and and even make the planet Earth-like. It remains analyse vast swathes of to be seen if his plan to have a million people the Red Planet, and living there by the turn of the century comes to perhaps definitively fruition, though. answer if there is For NASA, the plans are likely to be simpler and life on Mars. more realistic. Think along the lines of the Apollo missions, with small crews venturing to the Sunlight When completed, humans surface, staying on Mars for a few weeks or a few would be able to live years, before returning home. inside the dome, growing To create a habitat on Mars, it may be necessary plants in sunlight. to partially submerge a structure in the Martian Mars Ice House This proposal won NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge in 2015 Ice, ice, maybe As its name suggests, this structure would be made entirely out of ice. Exploration Astronauts could enter and exit the structure with ease, allowing them to explore the Water Martian surface. Subsurface water would continuously be mined to re-supply the astronauts and keep them alive. Terraforming Mars The steps we’d need to take to make Mars habitable 50 YEARS 100 YEARS 100 YEARS 150 YEARS Preparation Colonisation Melting Plants Send humans to Mars, and If Elon Musk is right, we By heating the poles we would By this point, oxygen levels install the machinery necessary could have a million people release vapour and CO2 into the may be suitable for plant to terraform the planet. living on Mars in 100 years. atmosphere, heating the planet. life on the surface. 126 DID YOU KNOW? Other places in the Solar System like Europa and Titan may once have played host to life, or perhaps still do This design from Team LavaHive uses 3D printing to create a modular Mars base Can we make Mars habitable? People have long dreamed of turning Mars into an Earth-like world. And it might be possible, although perhaps not just yet. One way to do it would be to heat the vast amount of ice at the Martian poles, maybe with large mirrors in orbit. This would release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thickening it, and potentially heating up the planet. Another method would be to use factories on the surface to manufacture chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from the air and soil. CFCs are responsible for Earth’s ozone, which traps heat from the Sun, and perhaps we could create a similar effect on Mars. We’d also need to find a way to turn the atmosphere from predominantly carbon dioxide into oxygen and nitrogen, like on Earth. One complication, though, is that without a magnetic field, the Martian atmosphere is continuously blown away by the Sun. Who knows, though – perhaps there’s a solution in the future. If all the ice on Mars This concept from Team Gamma uses melted, it could look semi-autonomous robots to construct a 50 YEARS decidedly more Radiation Earth-like The icy exterior habitat from the Martian soil would give protection from radiation, meaning 150 YEARS these humans would not have to live underground. 900 YEARS 100,000 YEARS Location The habitat would be built on land where subsurface water was easily accessible. Habitat modules © NASA; WIKI; Clouds AO; Foster + Partners would have both private and communal spaces 900 YEARS 100,000 YEARS Humans The future In an optimistic scenario, Mars could However, other estimates suggest it may then be suitable for everyday human take 10,000 to 100,000 years to terraform life in 900 years. the planet. Stay tuned! 127 SPACE OSIRIS-REx On board OSIRIS-REx What instruments will How this mission will return a the spacecraft use to study Bennu? chunk of asteroid to Earth S ince the final Luna mission to the Moon in 1976, we have returned less than a gram of material from another celestial body to Earth. GN&C LIDAR This system, standing for That’s quite a shocking statistic if you think about it, Guidance, Navigation and but in 2023, it’s all set to change. Control, will help measure NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral the range to Bennu during sample acquisition. Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) will return the largest extraterrestrial sample to Earth since the Apollo Mission goals missions, from an asteroid located beyond the orbit of The main goal of the OSIRIS-REx mission is to return a sizeable sample to Earth for study, letting Mars. Launched on 8 September 2016 from Cape us see what asteroids like Bennu are made of, Canaveral in Florida, OSIRIS-REx has begun its where they came from, and what role they had in two-year journey to the asteroid Bennu, 7.2 billion the early Solar System. It’s possible that asteroids like Bennu brought water to Earth, and possibly kilometres from Earth. the ingredients for life, too. The craft, measuring 2.4 by 2.4 metres, will arrive at Bennu also has a very small chance of hitting Bennu in August 2018. Less than two years later, it will Earth in the late 22nd century, rated at one in 2,500. Scientists will study the effect of the Sun use a robotic arm to grab a chunk of the asteroid, on the asteroid, known as the Yarkovsky effect, to anywhere from 60 grams to two kilograms in size. It see if this might push it more into our path in the TAGCAMS will then leave the asteroid in March 2021, and return future and raise the chance of it hitting us. Additional cameras, known as the the space rock sample to Earth in September 2023. Touch-And-Go Camera It’s a highly ambitious mission, with a huge number System (TAGCAMS), of unknowns. For example, this is only the second are able to snap extra images of the sample mission to try to return a sample from an asteroid. The capture event. first, Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft, ran into a number of complications following its launch in 2003, including the process of actually collecting the sample, and only just managed to limp home with a tiny selection of rocky grains on board in 2010. Scientists will be hoping for a better turn of events this time around, with the aim of furthering our understanding of asteroids – and also perhaps No one is quite sure what Bennu looks like yet preventing a deadly impact with Earth in the future. “OSIRIS-REx will return Mission the largest extraterrestrial timeline sample to Earth since the How OSIRIS-REx will travel to Bennu and Apollo missions” return to Earth 1. Launch 2. Gravity assist 3. Approach 4. Survey 8 SEPTEMBER 2016 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 AUGUST 2018 OCTOBER 2018 OSIRIS-REx successfully OSIRIS-REx will swing back past The spacecraft will officially OSIRIS-REx will start a launched atop an Atlas V rocket Earth after a year orbiting the begin its approach to Bennu one-year survey of the from Cape Canaveral in Florida, Sun, giving it a boost from when it is 2 million kilometres asteroid, selecting a suitable and started its two-year journey Earth’s gravitational field away, by matching the site to collect a sample from to Bennu. towards Bennu. asteroid’s speed. to bring back. 128 Particle problems DID YOU KNOW? The last US spacecraft to return a sample to Earth was Genesis in 2004, which returned particles of solar wind SRC The Sample Return Capsule (SRC) will use a Solar panels heat shield and parachutes The spacecraft’s two solar to safely return the sample OTES panels generate between to Earth. The OSIRIS-REx Thermal 1,226 and 3,000 watts, Emission Spectrometer (OTES) depending on the distance will use infrared data to from the Sun. determine the minerals and temperature on Bennu. OCAMS The three cameras that are in the OSIRIS-REx Camera Suite (OCAMS) will be used to image and map Bennu, as well as record the sampling event. REXIS The Regolith X-ray Imaging OLA Spectrometer (REXIS) will The OSIRIS-REx Laser work out what elements OSIRIS-REx Altimeter (OLA) will produce are present on Bennu. launched on 8 a 3D map of the asteroid September 2016 and help pick a sample site. from Cape Canaveral in Florida High gain antenna This large dish is used to TAGSAM communicate with Earth The Touch-And-Go throughout the duration of Sample Acquisition the mission. Mechanism (TAGSAM) will be responsible for collecting the sample from Bennu’s surface. 5. Sample collection 6. Return 7. Ejection 8. Landing 9. Research 3 MARCH 2021 OCTOBER 2018 24 SEPTEMBER 2023 24 SEPTEMBER 2023 BEYOND OSIRIS-REx will hover a few With the sample safely stowed Four hours before re-entry, The capsule will free-fall SEPTEMBER 2023 metres away from Bennu, in a capsule, OSIRIS-REx will OSIRIS-REx will jettison its before deploying a parachute Scientists will open the © NASA; WIKI extend a robotic arm, and fire now begin its journey back to return capsule to journey at an altitude of 3,000m, capsule, and study samples three bursts of nitrogen gas to Earth. It will have a long way alone. The spacecraft will be bringing it to a soft landing in for organic compounds and collect a sample. to go. manoeuvred to orbit the Sun. the Utah desert. clues to our own beginnings. 129 SPACE Inside Spaceport America In the town of Truth Or Consequences is the world’s first commercial spaceport S paceport America is described as the The structure sinks down into the ground to world’s “first purpose-built commercial spaceport”. It is an impressive maximise energy eff iciency, and winds whistle through to control the temperature inside. Like Catching a spaceplane In the future, it is hoped that Spaceport America 10,000-square-metre terminal building with a a standard airport, it has hangars and a will be the top destination for tourists looking to 3,657-metre runway, nestled in the remote departure lounge, but it is also fitted out with a catch a glimpse of the world from outer space. Jornada del Muerto desert basin in New Mexico, control room, space for astronauts to don their Virgin Galactic intends to prep their would-be astronauts with an intense three-day training US. Its ambitious organisation is on a mission suits, and training facilities for flight course on site. Health and safety is a priority, with “to make space travel as accessible to all as air preparations to be carried out. emergency response taking the number one spot travel is today”. The spaceport off icially opened in 2011, with on their planned training protocol. Medics will also be on hand, to ensure that passengers are The $200 million facility was designed by Virgin Galactic signing a 20-year agreement as physically and mentally ready for the intense UK-based Foster and Partners, and funded by the primary tenants back in 2008. However, it experience of the space environment. They will be New Mexico state taxpayers. It was built to has been a slow start for this ground-breaking exposed to g-forces in simulators and light aircraft in preparation for the big day. Once the mirror the spacecraft that it will one day house, project. Virgin Galactic plans to use the facility trip is over, SpaceShipTwo will land on the runway with a curved outline, skylights, and a three- to take passengers into space onboard like an airplane, and the passengers will be able to storey glass front looking out over the taxiway. SpaceShipTwo, but after a tragic fatal accident celebrate in style back at the spaceport. in 2014, the project is now running several years behind schedule. A number of smaller private companies have paid to use the facilities and over 20 launches have been made, but this is far fewer than originally expected, and the building is losing money. Time will tell whether Spaceport America will achieve its dream of becoming a bustling hub for commercial space travel. For Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo will now, it seems that while the building is ready, help launch SpaceShipTwo into space the spacecraft aren’t quite prepared for take-off. The airport’s hangar is known as the Gateway to Space building The runway is almost 4km long 130 DID YOU KNOW? There are plans to build a British spaceport, with locations being considered in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall © WIKI; Spaceport America; Illustration by Foster + Partners Skylights The amount of daylight Solar power Building the allowed in through the roof can be controlled. Internal vents spaceport British company Foster and Partners designed Spaceport America to be energy efficient Ventilation Air moves naturally through the structure, Local helping to keep it cool. materials The spaceport was built to blend in with its surroundings. Underground cooling Part of the structure is underground, and has been designed to cool the Underfloor heating air as it moves through. The structure sinks into the ground to maximise energy efficiency Kodiak Launch Complex Spaceports of America Oklahoma Air and Space Port Mojave Air and Space Port Cecil Field Spaceport California Spaceport Cape Canaveral “Like a standard airport, the spaceport has hangars and a departure lounge” 131 SPACE A TRAVELLER’S GUIDE TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM Join us as we embark on an epic voyage to the must-see sights oday, space travel is the reserve of assists from other planets to reach far-flung huge underground oceans that could harbour T multibillion dollar national space agencies and private companies. But in the not too distant future, it may become much destinations. But some dreamers imagine that we might have large habitats traversing the Solar System, which would-be space tourists some form of primitive life, while Jupiter itself is fascinating – with a giant storm in its atmosphere that has raged for four centuries. more accessible and even affordable to the could hitch a ride on to visit cosmic destinations. What would it be like if such destinations average person. In this future, it’s unlikely space There’s certainly no shortage of fascinating were within reach of the average person? travel will have changed too much, barring a places waiting to be explored. Relatively nearby, Perhaps, as you’ll see over the next few pages, major breakthrough. Astronauts will probably both Mars and Venus possess features that we would have tourist brochures describing still launch into space on rockets, or maybe make them almost Earth-like – and others that some of the fantastic holidays you could venture spaceplanes, and journeys around the Solar make them certainly not. Further out, some of on. So join us as we step into the future to see System will still rely on using gravitational the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn may have what the vacations of tomorrow might look like. 132 DID YOU KNOW? In 1995, the Galileo Probe was sent into Jupiter’s atmosphere – and was crushed in just 78 minutes Thick hydrogen Possible Liquid metallic Liquid and helium rocky core hydrogen molecular atmosphere hydrogen TITAN An Earth-like alien world MERCURY NEPTUNE Journey time: Six years URANUS SATURN JUPITER VENUS EARTH MARS Nearby destinations: Saturn, Enceladus, Mimas Average temperature: -180 degrees Celsius Tired of Earth’s poisoned waters and polluted skies? Why not come and see the only other world with lakes and seas on its surface? On Saturn’s moon Titan, you’ll see oozing bodies of liquid methane as they shimmer on the surface. The largest sea, Kraken Mare, covers 400,000 square kilometres – more than the Caspian Sea here on Earth. It’s so thick that it almost looks solid, with the biggest waves only reaching 1.5 centimetres high. Don’t fall in by mistake! JUPITER Eye of the storm Above you, you’ll be treated to MERCURY Journey time: Five years NEPTUNE URANUS SATURN the most Earth-like weather JUPITER VENUS EARTH MARS Nearby destinations: climate in the Solar System surface. From wind-swept sand Europa, Ganymede, Io – apart from Earth, of course. On dunes to the frozen, icy plains, Average temperature: -145 degrees Celsius our planet, water is cycled from take your time to explore this the ground to the atmosphere, strange and alien landscape on but on Titan, there’s methane the trip of a lifetime. If you’re With a storm that has raged for rain. However, plan your trip lucky, you’ll even get to see the over 400 years and lightning wisely, as it only rains once first man-made spacecraft to bigger than anything on Earth, every 1,000 years. ever touch down on the surface you better book soon or miss out! Perhaps best of all, you’ll get – the Huygens lander – which Welcome to Jupiter, the largest to experience the moon’s arrived back in 2005. planet in the Solar System. This gas giant has a thick atmosphere Wrap up warm of hydrogen and helium, with a Temperatures on Titan’s liquid metallic hydrogen core surface fall to -180˚C – look out for rocks of ice lying beneath. The pressure © NASA; Hubble Heritage and liquid methane! there is two million times stronger than the surface pressure on Earth, so you won’t be leaving the spaceship – you’d be crushed before you had your Jupiter’s Great complimentary cocktail. Red Spot has A highlight will be the Great raged for over 400 years Red Spot, a giant anti-cyclone that has raged since the 17th century. Three Earths would fit inside the storm and the lightning is 1,000 times more forceful than that on our planet. What’s more, Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field creates fantastic Titan’s methane cycle is remarkably aurorae at its poles that are similar to Earth’s water cycle bigger than the entire Earth. 133 SPACE ly relative dus is Encela ee n here as s small, the red to compa ingdom d K Unite MARS Look into our future MERCURY NEPTUNE Journey time: Eight months URANUS SATURN JUPITER VENUS EARTH MARS Nearby destinations: Phobos, Deimos Average temperature: -55 degrees Celsius We haven’t got round to vast canyon system known as inventing time travel yet, but Valles Marineris. It is 4,000 we’ve got the next best thing: a kilometres long – nearly ten glimpse of what will become of Earth in a few billion years. This times the length of the Grand Canyon – making it the biggest ENCELADUS is Mars, a world that once played in the Solar System. host to vast oceans and seas, but Elsewhere on Mars, you can is now barren and dry as its also visit the largest mountain, atmosphere was stripped away Olympus Mons. Spanning 624 MERCURY Journey time: Six years NEPTUNE URANUS SATURN JUPITER VENUS EARTH MARS by the Sun. On a trip to Mars, kilometres in diameter, it’s Nearby destinations: Saturn, Titan, Dione you can explore the ancient river roughly the size of Arizona, and Average temperature: and stream beds, remnants of a a towering 25 kilometres high. -200 degrees Celsius much more Earth-like past. You’ll need to bring your hiking That’s not all. Stretching shoes if you decide to climb this At first glance, you might not be across the equator of Mars is a cosmic behemoth. that impressed by Enceladus. Just 500 kilometres in diameter, Liquid iron- Solid inner Mantle it is only the sixth largest moon sulphur core core of Saturn, and its surface doesn’t look too interesting initially. Peer a little closer, however, and you’ll quickly discover a rich and fascinating world. When you arrive at Enceladus, the first thing you’ll notice is how bright it is. In fact, it reflects almost all of the sunlight that hits it because the surface is made of ice. It’s also dotted with vast canyons up to 200 kilometres long, shaped by tectonic activity in the moon’s past. Large geysers of water vapour fire out from the south pole of Enceladus Perhaps most of interest, though, are the cryovolcanoes – which shoot ice, not lava – near Surface Crust the south pole that are responsible for powering Valles Marineris is the biggest canyon in the Solar System hundreds of geysers. The source of water for these is a vast subsurface ocean, kept wet by the inner heat of Enceladus and tidal forces from another of Saturn’s moons, Dione. Small though it may be, this moon is full of surprises. And who knows what lies beneath the surface? Some say the conditions may be right for some form of primitive life to exist. 134 DID YOU KNOW? Like Mars, Venus may have had Earth-like bodies of liquid, such as oceans, on its surface billions of years ago Time your trip right and you might spot an active EUROPA volcano on Venus Search for life MERCURY NEPTUNE Journey time: Five years URANUS SATURN JUPITER VENUS EARTH MARS Nearby destinations: Jupiter, Ganymede, Io Average temperature: -160 degrees Celsius As far as we’re aware, we’re still is the ground itself that is alone in the universe. But one of especially interesting. Lines our best bets for finding life on a criss-cross beneath your feet, world other than Earth may be where the icy surface has been Europa, the fourth largest moon pulled apart, revealing warmer of Jupiter. And you, too, could be layers below. Elsewhere, you’ll part of an exciting discovery. spot so-called ‘chaos’ regions, On Europa, you’ll orbit Jupiter once every 3.5 days, with the where thick and thin ice on Europa have mushed together to VENUS same face of the moon always produce iceberg-like features Some like it hot pointing towards the gas giant. that move across the surface. But the orbit of Europa is MERCURY Journey time: Three months NEPTUNE URANUS SATURN JUPITER elliptical, so it is pushed and VENUS EARTH MARS Nearby destinations: pulled by the massive planet. Mercury, The Sun This heats its core and, beneath Average temperature: 462 degrees Celsius the icy surface, allows a vast ocean, containing more water It might be the hottest planet in There are alien features too, than there is on Earth, to exist. the Solar System, but don’t let though, such as large ring-like This source of heat, coupled that deter you from visiting structures called crowns – up to with the existence of water, Venus. Between 50 and 60 580 kilometres wide – which suggests the interior of Europa kilometres above the surface, formed when hot material rose might be habitable. you’ll find the most Earth-like up from beneath the crust. If On the surface, things are no conditions on any other world, you’re lucky, you might even less fascinating. Like Enceladus, as the atmospheric pressure catch an active volcano, which Europa may also be ejecting and temperature are the same can raise temperatures up to 800 plumes of water into space, but it © SPL; NASA; ESA as on our planet. Here, you can degrees Celsius. If you like your stay on floating colonies as you holidays hot, this is the place Hot core Icy crust Europa is one of the enjoy the many wonders of for you. Thought to be made of iron, the smoothest objects Venus, complete with dramatic hot core keeps in the Solar System, forks of lightning striking covered in a Slow core Europa’s ocean through the atmosphere. Venus has a weak layer liquid. pristine layer of ice. Down on the surface, magnetic field, which may relate to its things get a little toastier. slowly spinning core. With a scorching hot temperature of several hundred degrees Celsius – hot enough to melt lead – you won’t want to venture down unprotected. Plumes o Explore a little and fw also shoo ater t fr Europa, ju om you’ll discover many st like Saturn’s geological features that mo Enceladu on are also found back on Hidden ocean s Under Europa’s icy planet Earth. These Thin crust surface lies a vast include huge canyons, A thin upper layer may ocean with more water account for Venus’ volcanoes, and even ancient volcanic activity. than there is on Earth. lava flows. 135 SPACE Growing food on Mars and the Moon could hugely benefit plans to colonise other worlds Farming on alien planets Mars and the Moon could be new places to grow food elieve it or not, the soil found on the Hawaii and Arizona to obtain material akin to untreated soil found on Mars was the plant’s B © NASA/ESA/The Hubble Heritage Team; NASA Moon and Mars could actually be much Martian dirt and lunar soil, to provide us with favourite. On the other hand, Moon dirt didn’t more fertile than some of the dirt found the information that could help humans one agree with them completely, with some crops on Earth. If we are ever to go on to colonise day settle on an alien planet. Both soils have struggling to grow. other worlds – with the Red Planet being our the essential ingredients plants need to grow All’s not lost for crop farming on the Moon, number-one target – then this is very good news – nitrates and ammonium. though – scientists think that pumping our for astronauts. The experts found – by using ‘fake’ minerals natural satellite’s soil with nitrogen-fi xing It’s thanks to a team of scientists in the from Mars and the Moon to try and grow bacteria could be the ticket for growing crops Netherlands, who have braved volcanoes in carrots, tomatoes, weeds and wheat – that on our cratered companion. 136 DID YOU KNOW? The first successful orbital launch was back in 1957 with the Russian Sputnik 1 Rockets of the past, present and future How does NASA’s Space Launch The Saturn V’s inventor, System compare with some of Wernher von Braun, stands next to its history’s greatest launchers? gigantic F-1 engines ver since the words “One small step for exploration has been pushed to be faster, E man, one giant leap for mankind“ echoed from our television sets, space stronger, and bigger. This can be seen in the wide array of rockets that have been developed over time. While the smallest rocket of all time, LENGTH (M) 120 The SLS does lose sections the Space Shuttle, has been in use since 1981, LENGTH LENGTH 111 110.6 after launch, shortening it the largest rocket has never been put to use at all. The At 111 metres, the Space Launch System (SLS) Block 2 is set to be used in 2018, and will carry human astronauts. That doesn’t mean 100 that big automatically equals modern; the Saturn V almost matches the SLS, despite being around 50 years old. 80 LENGTH LENGTH 72 70 LENGTH 58.2 60 LENGTH 56.1 LENGTH 53 40 LENGTH 29.9 20 SPACE SHUTTLE ARIANE 5 ES ATLAS V 551 DELTA IV HEAVY FALCON 9 V1.1 VEGA SPACE LAUNCH SATURN V Years of service: Years of service: Years of service: Years of service: Years of service: Years of service: SYSTEM (SLS) Years of service: 1981-2011 2008-present 2006-present 2004-present 2015-present 2012-present BLOCK 2 1967-1973 Payload to low-Earth Payload to low-Earth Payload to low-Earth Payload to low-Earth Payload to Payload to low-Earth Years of service: Payload to low-Earth orbit (tons): 27.5 orbit (tons): 21 orbit (tons): 18.8 orbit (tons): 28.8 low-Earth orbit orbit (tons): 1.5 From 2018 orbit (tons): 140 Cargo: Satellites, Cargo: Rosetta, Cargo: Juno, New Cargo: Orion (tons): 13.2 Cargo: Smaller Payload to low-Earth Cargo: The Apollo probes and Automated Transfer Horizons Multi-Purpose Crew Cargo: satellites orbit (tons): 130 missions to the astronauts Vehicle Destinations: Vehicle, Orion Communications Destinations: Cargo: Four Moon, Skylab Destinations: Destinations: Low-Earth orbit, satellites satellites Low-Earth astronauts space station International Space Geostationary geostationary Destinations: Low-Earth Destinations: orbit, Sun- Destinations: Beyond Destinations: Beyond Station, Hubble transfer orbit, long transfer orbit orbit, geosynchronous Low-Earth orbit synchronous orbit, low-Earth orbit, low-Earth orbit Space Telescope term orbit transfer orbit polar orbit asteroids, Mars 137 How we could turn craters into colonies for human life he Moon is our closest neighbour, but and its unique environment could hold clues to preparation for future mining missions, and T only 12 people have ever set foot on its surface. Since 1972, the only visitors have been robots, orbiters and probes. For a long the history of the Solar System. The Moon’s potential has been recognised by organisations across the world, and there are now several they are building a shuttle capable of lifting human astronauts to the Moon. What’s more, in 2007, Google launched the Lunar XPRIZE, time there was little interest in going back, but exploratory missions in development. At the encouraging private companies to land rovers at just three days journey away from Earth, the moment, these are focused around finding out on the surface by 2017. Even NASA, who has Moon is an obvious target for further more about the Moon’s potential, but over the chosen to focus their resources on manned investigation. With more countries establishing next few decades, manned missions and even missions to asteroids and to Mars, are their own space programmes, and an base construction could be on the agenda. developing a probe to map the water deposits increasing number of private companies Russia’s Roscosmos are planning a series of on the lunar south pole. entering the field, interest in the Moon is Luna-Glob missions as a starting point for At the moment, we are just taking our first growing once again. establishing a robotic base, and in tentative steps towards further exploration of The environment on the Moon’s surface is collaboration with the European Space Agency, the Moon, but in the future a science fiction- hazardous, but if we can find a way to construct they are hoping to scope out the Moon’s south style base on the surface could become a a base we would gain access to a wealth of pole in 2019 and 2020. The China National Space reality. We explore what such a lunar outpost off-world resources. It is a prime location for Administration are developing a series of might look like, and what hazards and telescopes and communications equipment, Chang’e probes to collect lunar samples in challenges could get in the way.. 138 DID YOU KNOW? The last person to have set foot on the Moon was Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan in 1972 Why the Moon? Lunar holidays With preparations already underway for manned missions to Mars, some might question the logic behind a return to With space tourism barely in its infancy, it might A base on the Moon could pave the way for a new the Moon, but a lunar outpost could bring several seem a bit premature to consider the idea of kind of holiday advantages. A trip to the Moon and back could be completed holidaying on the Moon, but if humanity were to in under a week, and the surface is rich in resources. Lunar establish a base up there, visitors would almost be dust contains hydrogen, oxygen, iron and other metals, and inevitable. The company Space Adventures if these resources could be mined, it could provide a close has already sold two $150 million tickets off-world source of water and building materials. for a trip to visit the Moon in 2018, and The far side of the Moon is shielded from the noise of more private organisations are Earth’s communications, providing a quiet vantage point for looking to set up their own tours. looking out into the universe, and the near side has a Rules set out in the 1967 Outer constant view of the surface of our planet, making it an ideal Space Treaty state that the place to set up monitoring stations. Navigational support Moon cannot be claimed by any could also be provided for a variety of operations, from country, even if they have set search and rescue on Earth to deep space exploration. up a base there. However, laws A base on the Moon would also allow us to look closer at its regarding the exploitation of geology, which in turn would help us uncover more about its the Moon and its resources for history and the evolution of the Solar System. Experiments commercial gain have not yet could be conducted, and materials and equipment could be been fully established. tested, away from the familiar conditions on Earth. Colonising space Stepping stone Mining and A lunar base could perform Establishing a base on the excavation many different functions, from Moon would be a big step The Moon is rich in mining to communications towards colonising Mars. resources and could be used for construction or to make fuel, oxygen Space outpost and water. The Moon’s location and lack of atmosphere make it a good place for communications equipment and sensitive telescopes. Exploration Large vehicles could Refuelling be used to carry The low gravity on the explorers away from surface would allow established bases to spacecraft to land, refuel explore the Moon. and take off much more efficiently than on Earth. Technical testing Building a protective habitat on the surface of the Moon will test technologies to their limits. © ESA_Foster + Partners; NASA 139 SPACE Inflatable habitats are light, but How to vulnerable to asteroid impacts build a base The Moon has little atmosphere and none of the protective shielding that we enjoy here on Earth; as a result, the surface is hostile. It is pummelled by solar winds, scorched by radiation, and chunks of rock regularly fall from the sky. The ground is coated in the shattered remains of ancient asteroid impacts, forming a thick layer of sticky dust, and with no atmosphere or weather to wear the particles down, the grains are razor sharp. A successful base would need protection against all of these threats, and, for people to stay there long-term, it would also require a steady supply of food, water, oxygen, power, shelter and rocket fuel. One of the most popular concepts for a lunar base is inflatable housing – lightweight and easily assembled by pressurising from the inside. With the airlock from the landing capsule used as a door, these structures could provide a quick and simple solution to setting up a base. However, a puncture could prove catastrophic, so the pods would need to be Buildings coated in Moon dust Dust from the Moon could be used shielded in underground chambers or beneath would be shielded from as a material for 3D printing piles of Moon dust. impacts and radiation Flat-packed panels could also be shipped in from Earth to build sturdier dome or hangar structures, but it would be much more fuel- eff icient to use building materials found on the surface of the Moon. When heated, lunar dust can be transformed into a tough solid that could be used to construct buildings and roads, and 3D printers could one day be used to make structures from the regolith. In the right location, solar panels could provide renewable power for the base, and, if plants are able to grow on the Moon, it could one day be possible to set up a semi-sustainable farming and composting system. Then, if water, Excavation equipment would need oxygen and hydrogen (rocket fuel) could be to resist the damaging effects of extracted from lunar dust, a base might even be fine dust particles able to become self-suff icient. Unfortunately, there are still major challenges to be overcome before we reach this stage, not least the devastating effects of lunar dust. The dust seems to find its way inside even tightly sealed spaces, causing rapid damage to equipment. There are some ideas to get around this, including cable cars or covered transport tubes to minimise the disturbance on the surface, and clean rooms and air locks to keep inside spaces dust-free. “Solar panels could provide renewable power for the base” 140 WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM DID YOU KNOW? NASA held a Regolith Excavation Challenge to encourage engineers to built robots that can dig up lunar soil Permanent shade The north pole is smoother Craters than the south pole, but parts Craters near the poles of it are in constant shadow. could provide protection against solar wind. Helium-3 Solar winds have left rich helium-3 deposits near the equator, providing a potential WHERE TO BUILD? Choosing the right spot could mean the source of clean energy. difference between success and failure Smooth terrain The surface near the equator might be easier to land on, but the temperatures here vary by hundreds of degrees. NEAR SIDE FAR SIDE Lava tubes Caverns beneath the surface of the Moon could provide shelter from radiation, space weather and temperature changes. Sunlight Water ice The equator is in darkness for 14 days There is frozen water at a time, but some places near the locked away near to poles are in near constant sunlight. the Moon’s north and south poles. Location, location, location The Apollo missions landed close to the Moon’s with sunlight absent for days at a time, solar One promising location is Shackleton Crater, equator, where the surface is smooth and power would be intermittent. Facing head on to which is found at the Moon’s southern pole. It entering orbit is easy, but these regions have the Sun and with little in the way of receives sunlight for around 80 per cent of the serious problems with temperature control. The atmosphere, the equator is also blasted by year, which could provide a near constant Moon turns on its axis once every 28 Earth days, radiation and solar winds. source of electricity from solar panels. Building so daytime at the equator lasts for two weeks, At the poles, night and day are less dramatic. a base near the equator would be more and temperatures climb to more than 100 The surface is rougher, but certain areas receive challenging, but underground habitats could degrees Celsius. For the other two weeks, the sunlight for most of the year, and the provide enough protection in more exposed same spot is plunged into total darkness and the temperature remains more stable at around locations. Lava tubes like the Marius Hills pit © ESA; NASA; REX surface cools to 150 degrees below freezing. zero degrees Celsius. There is also water ice could offer ready-made shelter from These wide fluctuations could pose real trapped at the poles, which could provide temperature fluctuations, solar wind, radiation problems for buildings and equipment, and gases, fluids and even rocket fuel. and surface dust. 141 SPACE Inflatable habitats Building materials are heavy, so one option is to use inflatables. These would need to be protected from impacts. WHAT WOULD A LUNAR COLONY LOOK LIKE? The Moon is not a safe place for humans; the base will be essential for survival Water supply Water could be extracted from lunar dust by heating it with hydrogen gas. Launch and landing The gravity on the Moon is low, so launching and landing spacecraft requires much less fuel than it does on Earth. Telescopes and equipment Away from the Radiation shielding interference of Earth’s Buildings would need to be atmosphere, a lunar protected from radiation. A base could house popular idea is to bury them powerful telescopes. under layers of moon dust. 142 Oxygen Water extracted from the lunar surface could be split into hydrogen and oxygen “Only a handful of people have using a technique called electrolysis. visited the Moon’s surface, and the longest stay lasted three days” Glass roads Microwaves could be used to melt the dust on the surface of the Moon to produce smooth, tough roads. Food Flatpack buildings Farming resources would need Buildings could be to be transported to the Moon, constructed using geometric but waste could then be recycled frameworks shipped in pieces to keep plants growing. from Earth. Home away from home Humans have been living in space since the 1970s, falling around the Earth inside orbiting space stations like Salyut, Almaz, Skylab, Mir and the International Space Station (ISS), but no one has been in orbit for longer than 438 days (the record set by Valery Polyakov), making the long-term success of space colonies hard to predict. Over 200 astronauts and cosmonauts have lived on the ISS, and by monitoring them closely we have learnt a lot about the effects of microgravity on the human body, © DK; Dreamstime but the Moon is a different environment. Only a handful of people have visited the surface, and the longest stay lasted for only three days. The Moon has a sixth of the Earth’s gravity, and comes with its own unique challenges. The dust that coats the surface could prove one of the most diff icult problems to overcome. During the Apollo missions, the sharp particles found their way into equipment, through vacuum seals, and even Mining inside spacesuits, irritating the operations The dust – or regolith eyes and lungs of the astronauts. – could be mined for Permanent settlements on the use as a building Moon will only be possible with material, or to make proper protection oxygen, water and rocket fuel. 143 TRY TODAY HOW IT WORKS The fact-packed science and tech magazine! The science and technology magazine bursting with exciting information about our universe. Be inspired by everything from the planet’s most bizarre creatures and unusual phenomena to the incredible technologies advancing and enhancing our modern lives. 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