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Science

Radio Waves Employed in Space Construction 195

Posted by Hemos
CDeity writes "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology claim that radio waves could be used to shape and fuse debris in space to form massive structures according to this article. Scientists have in the past employed sound and light waves to position small particles, and every expectation indicates these techniques could work on a large scale. One engineer estimates " it would take approximately one hour to form a rubble cloud into a 50-meter long enclosed structure.""
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Radio Waves Employed in Space Construction More

Radio Waves Employed in Space Construction

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  • Perhaps (Score:5, Funny)

    by kaoshin ( 110328 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @07:50PM (#4681927)
    They could seek the advice of street bums. They have lots of experience with forming structures from rubble and may provide valuable insight!

  • I've seen this done on a smaller scale (Score:3, Interesting)

    by faeryman ( 191366 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @07:50PM (#4681940) Homepage
    and its very cool! At the Space Camp center, there used to be an exhibit where you could suspend in midair some little white polystyrene (?) balls with sound waves. After about 10 seconds the sound would sto and the balls would fall. I was always amazed at it, and always wondered if there were any practical uses for this.

  • just make sure you get the right channel (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wantok ( 68892 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @07:51PM (#4681943)
    OK, just tune the megatransmitter to a hiphop station for the structural elements...

    classical for the smooth solar sails...

    and talkback for all the crap that has to be cleared off the building site.

  • Neat-o (Score:2, Funny)

    by Vraylle ( 610820 )
    I imagine results visually akin to a Borg sphere. Does this work on all matter? If so, can we ship up all the stupid people and finally put them to good use?

  • In Space no one can hear you build (Score:5, Funny)

    by codeonezero ( 540302 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @07:53PM (#4681961)
    Hehe,

    Lets just hope the engineers aren't big Star Trek fans or they'll try building these structures with sound in outer space. :-)

    • You do of course understand that the article is about *radio* and not sound. Don't you?
      • "You do of course understand that the article is about *radio* and not sound. Don't you?"

        Snippet from article: "Scientists have in the past employed sound and light waves to position small particles, and every expectation indicates these techniques could work on a large scale."

        You do of course understand that the parent poster was well aware of that, which is why the joke was funny. Don't you? It's called a joke.
    • If I was to design a combat spacecraft control system, you would hear the other spacecraft exploding because the system would note that the spacecraft was exploding and would make the noises in your headset.

      I probably wouldn't make the bridge chair shake however.

      Regards,
      Ross
      • That's a good idea. Link the radar to dolby spatialized sterio and have "engine noises" doppler shift around you so you can be queued as to where other craft are without turning your head...

        You should join the airforce. Or take out a patent.
        • They might do this already for jet pilots. With the engine noise of your own jet, there's no way in hell you'd hear another plane, even if it were two feet away from your cockpit.

          Some poster on /. said they simulate the sound of nearby objects for exactly this purpose.

          The UI innovation *I* want is for this guy [chordite.com] to start talking to these guys [sighted.com] and get me a complete computer interface that fits in my hand. It'd beat the hell out of a blackberry...

  • 1 Hour Eh? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Malicious ( 567158 )
    Just imagine the billboards we are going to see....

  • energy? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sploxx ( 622853 )
    I'm really wondering where all the energy should come from.... energy to move these "bricks"...
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • When there's no gravity, *any* amount of force will start someting moving. In space, I guess the electromagnetic waves have enough force to overcome the tiny amounts of gravity out there. Once something's moving, it doesn't stop until another force acts on it. So there really isn't a lot of energy that needs to come from anywhere. It's all in the radio waves.
  • As a tribute to one of the great scientific minds of our time (Arthur C. Clarke), all radio waves used in space contruction should be derivatives of Also Sprach Zarathustra

    Thusly ACC would be a part of the space exploration movement that he himself helped to bring about. I'm sure everyone by now has heard about the Jupiter slingshot effect that he devised and was then used by NASA.

  • Hmm... (Score:2, Funny)

    by _ph1ux_ ( 216706 )
    Noob Astronaught: We appear to be flying towards that small moon.

    Seasoned AStronaught: Thats no moon....

  • Can the opposite be done as well? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by codeonezero ( 540302 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:01PM (#4682034)
    Ok,

    So I haven't quite read the article but it occured to me.

    Is it possible to demolish such a structure with radio waves? Or do the laws that lets you do things one way, prevent you form doing things the other way?

    if you can't demolish the structures with radio waves, then what changes once you have built the structure that prevents you from doing so?

  • moon manipulation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EEgopher ( 527984 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:01PM (#4682036) Homepage
    Quite a cool idea. But consider how much output power would be required -- more than any earthly transmitter; and the zappers would require jets and fuel to keep them stationary while they zapped, and an extensive control system for the jets would be needed to shape the rubble into the astroid-sized bust of Jaromir Jagr.
    What if his smiling face was looking down at us from orbit? Imagine how many astronomers we could scare!

    • Quite a cool idea. But consider how much output power would be required -- more than any earthly transmitter; and the zappers would require jets and fuel to keep them stationary while they zapped, and an extensive control system for the jets would be needed to shape the rubble into the astroid-sized bust of Jaromir Jagr.

      There are other ways to do stationkeeping if you have this technology down. Mostly I would be thinking of putting them on a frame, and using any materials you wouldn't want to include in your structure along the frame to add mass. You can also throw it away to give yourself a push to keep balance.

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • When you create a dustcloud in a closed room and ignite the dust with a simple light, it gives a big boom, because the air expands rapidly.

    I bet some malicious devices could be created with this technology.

  • What about weapon uses? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phillymjs ( 234426 ) <slashdot@stanTWAINgo.org minus author> on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:09PM (#4682084) Homepage Journal
    Since I'm currently watching a TiVoed episode ot The Outer Limits where this is a common theme, I have to raise the question of "the promising new technology being perverted into a weapon."

    If you can form structures out of crap floating in space, why couldn't it just be compressed into a large enough object to survive re-entry, and sent on its merry way, aimed at what the aggressor wants to obliterate here on Earth?

    Imagine if GWB suddenly backed down on all his we-gotta-git-Saddam rhetoric because it was getting hom nowhere and the American people were firmly against attacking Iraq, and then two or three months later Baghdad was mysteriously leveled by an nearby meteor strike one morning.

    ~Philly
    • Human have known, for the last 35 000 years ( at least ) that a rock is an efficient weapon to throw at the head of your ennemy. There's just no way you'll prevent weapon discovery, big or small. Put more than 1 person in a group and noone can both enjoy freedom and be sure not be killed by another one.

      That's why we have society. And culture. And laws. And morale. Preventing the technology use/discovery or whatever is pointless. You have to acknowledge that you are living in a big spaceship with 6 000 000 000 other living being. Jettison is not an option.

      The solution is a social one, not a technological one. I do not claim to know it. I just claim that it is not by saying this XYZthingy could be a weapon that anyone's gonna solve anything.

      If you want to solve problems, just take away the reason that LeaderXYZ has to kill others/invade country/destroy environment.

    • That assumes that the Bad Guys have easy access to space while the Good Guys sit here on the ground praying (literally, where GWB is concerned) that nobody drops anything heavy. The military advantages of having easy access to the upside of Earth's gravity well, particularly if you have some level of industry up there, are amazing. In some future era where spaceflight is commonplace, any country that a) is capable of establishing a presense in space and b) chooses not to, is being foolishly lax and will almost deserve what it gets.

  • Weapons Research (Score:4, Interesting)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:14PM (#4682132)
    And how long would it take to push debris into an enemy satellite? Or form a large enough mass to plunk down on an unsuspecting enemy?

    • Re:Weapons Research (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No, why waste energy moving debris when you could just laser them instead at a fraction of the power?

      Oh, and why hurtle debris when you could simply destroy the orbit of your target and make it feel the burn like Steve Balmer.
    • Umm... what enemy satellites? Unlike whatever fiction you've integrated into your view of reality, the US is pretty well uncontested in the satellite area. No current enemies (Iraq, Afghanistan, even friggin' Mexico) have space programs, much less useful satellites, much less useful satellites which could possibly pose a threat to anybody.
  • I was using one of these radio wave generators to construct my own personal spacecraft last week.

    My friend and I were sitting there in the station, and were getting real tired of the annoying noise being picked up by our stereo. We were getting really bored bored, and as you know these things take hours, so we decided to see what would happen when we broadcast some hard rock via the device.

    And it worked... mostly. All was going well until the end. All of a sudden, about 3/4 of the way through Jimmy Hendrix playing "All along the Watchtowner", the craft started spinning around wildly, and smashed itself to the moon where it shattered into a million pieces, and then it set itself on fire.

    I can't figure it out...

    And then my sister put in some Michael Jackson, but I don't even want to talk about that...

  • Clean up the space junk (Score:5, Interesting)

    by p3d0 ( 42270 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:15PM (#4682146)
    Could this be used to solve that nasty space junk problem [space.com]? As I understand it, there is no known way to clean this stuff up.
    • This was my first thought. I could imagine an automated sonic bulldozer of sorts going around pushing things down into the atmosphere where they'd be destroyed during re-entry.

      Of course a massive orbiting wall of space junk would protect us from aliens, which is nice.

    • Buy space junk (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Cheese Cracker ( 615402 )
      Could this be used to solve that nasty space junk problem [space.com]? As I understand it, there is no known way to clean this stuff up.

      From the link above: The oldest debris still on orbit is the second US satellite, the Vanguard I, launched on 1958, March, the 17th, which worked only for 6 years.

      NASA should take it down with one of the shuttles and sell it on Ebay... I bet some billionaire would buy it.
  • He has harnessed the power of his stereo system and can actually *make my walls shake*. I just sit there on my couch marvelling at his ingenuity. I've never met him, but I picture a singular genius toiling away at his workbench, wiping sweat from his haggard brow as Mother Inspiration taps him on the shoulder yet again. What will he think of next?

  • what about? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by perrin5 ( 38802 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:17PM (#4682159) Homepage
    Newton's 3rd law (equal and opposite reaction...), according to their nifty little diagram, this would require satelites surrounding the object, and pushing them from all directions, so:
    1) how do you keep the satelites around after they start generating their waves?
    2) how do you keep them symmetrical? (the requirement is that they set up a resonator, I think, in which case, spacing is VERY important).
    • inthe case of cleaning up space junk...you have a location that 2 satelites meet where there are 4 more satelites waiting...you send of one satelite in one direction pushing space junk, and another in the oposite direction pushing space junk...then they meet at teh location where you have 4 more waiting all teh junk gets pushed into the center of all 6, and they go to work at moulding it.

      you manuver the junk, not the satelites...like driving cattle.

    • Re:what about? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by freakinPsycho ( 23459 )
      You forget two things: intertia and mass.

      If I have a rather large satelite using waves to push rather small objects, the satelite won't move, much.

      It would be very simple to counteract the marginal amount of force generated by pushing the particles around.
    • 1) Read the article. They use the radio waves to temporarily hold the raw materials while they lock them down with more permanent measures.
    • Maybe the satellites could also be pulling & pushing on each other, in order to maintain their relative positioning.
    • Well... what we're going to do is put the satelites in a warp bouble... so they are displaced from the real world...
  • You think that's a long time to rearange matter? Get it to clean my room!
  • I've never heard of this concept. Why can't we use super-concentrated radio waves as force fields to guard against space debris?

    How can it be that just flashing a light wave at something will cause it to move?

    The article just assumes that we all knew about radio waves having force, whereas I was laboring under the impression that they had none.
    • Radio-Wave Controlled Electric Field Drive System

      He talks about the same type of a principal, but explains a bit more about the radio waves. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ufophysics/twinwave.h tm [ntlworld.com]

    • They do have force.. or more exactly momentum!

      E=hf=mc^2 -> m=hf/c^2
      v=c, p=mv=hf/c
    • All electromagnetic waves, including light, are made up of photons and they do excert a force. The momentum of light can be calcuated via its frequency. The smaller the wavelength the more momentum and energy it has. According to Einstein: E^2=p^2c^2 +(mc^2)^2 Since the mass of a photon is negligable, if it even has one, E=pc where the energy is dependant on the momentum. C is a constant, ~ 3.0e8 m/s P is the momentum of the photon. Light is both a particle and a wave. P = h/(wavelength) where h is plancks constant. In fact P = h/wavelenght is true for all matter as well. If you want to learn more do some reading on quantum physics.

    • The article just assumes that we all knew about radio waves having force, whereas I was laboring under the impression that they had none.

      Photons do have force. In fact, probably the most viable concept for intersteller travel at close to the speed of light is a laser or microwave sail. (You shoot lasers or microwaves at a gossamer sail. This is actually better than antimatter for intersteller travel)
    • As several people have mentioned, photons have momentum and do exert pressure (called radiation pressure).

      Looking at it classically, though, electromagnetic waves are made up of electric fields and magnetic fields. Electric fields exert a force on charged particles. So if you point a radio wave at an object that reflects waves, then the wave's electric field will push the electrons in the object back and forth. The moving charged particles then interact with the wave's magnetic field, pushing them in the direction the wave was traveling.. Which is the same thing we could have predicted from conservation of momentum. (Warning: IANAP.)
  • Sorry to break the news to Georgia....

    No matter how much they shout at the roaches on the table, they won't combine to form another blunt.

    Sadly.

  • What about on earth, in water? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by btempleton ( 149110 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:34PM (#4682277) Homepage
    Could this technique be used to take building blocks that have been tuned to be neutrally boyant, and then assemble them into structures using sound in the water, then slowly lower the water and weld each layer as it comes out of the water?

    Of course neutrally boyant requires no gasses in the objects that can be compressed, though I could imagine you might have metal building blocks with a gas bladder inside that can be filled by computer controlled pump to make it neutrally boyant to some degree.

    Imagine building the frame of a house in a big
    tank.

    Anybody done this?

  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • So they are going to send robots out to pulverize an asteroid in the asteroid belt. Next they are going to take the particles remaining and use radio waves to create... a ball in space. Sounds almost like an asteroid.

    Yes I do realize that they are attempting to create a more useful structure with the debris, but this just reminds of the innate human drive (of which I fully admit guilt) of breaking things in order to put them back together- only better!

    Maybe there is a use for that satellite radio service now...

  • sound waves? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by GoatPigSheep ( 525460 )
    how can you use sound waves in space? I thought that in space there is no sound. With no atmosphere, how would sound travel at all?

    Maybe there is sound in space on tv but it's not so in the real world.
    • What I gathered from the article is that they have done proof of concept testing/research using sound waves but would plan to use electromagnetic waves in space.

    • Re:sound waves? (Score:2, Redundant)

      by foniksonik ( 573572 )


      This has been a fallacy that has urked me for a while.... now tell me how the hell do we use RADIO telescopes to do research on extraterrestrial phenomenae?

      No sound in space huh?! Well, maybe nothing you or I could hear, WHILE in the VACUUM of space.

      The only reason we can't hear in a vacuum is that OUR ears need a media such as air or water to carry the sound waves to them. Radio waves which BTW != "sound waves" can travel though space or a vacuum just fine. Again this is why we can 'listen' to natural events like supernovas via our radio telescopes.

      • No sound in space huh?! Well, maybe nothing you or I could hear, WHILE in the VACUUM of space.

        Are you implying that a sound wave can be created in air, travel through a vacuum, enter another body of air and be heard? My understanding of sound is that it travels as compressed air. This to me implys that once a sound wave hits a vacuum, it can no longer travel.

        I'm not trying to troll or flame, I'm just wondering if there is something more to sound waves than what I understand.

      • Re:sound waves? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Spy Hunter ( 317220 )
        What is your point? Of course you can send sound through space encoded in some form of radio transmission. But radio is not sound. There is no sound in space. Saying that there is sound in space is like saying there is sound inside the telephone wire. Sure there is information about sound waves traveling through the wire, but there is no sound. Sound is a vibration of matter. There is no matter in space to vibrate. Hence, no sound. (if you want to be pedantic about it, there is matter in space but the amount is so incredibly tiny, on the order of a few atoms per square meter, that it is not worth talking about. Certainly not enough matter there to carry sound).

  • Radio waves (Score:5, Funny)

    by MongooseCN ( 139203 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:39PM (#4682320) Homepage
    Dude: Dude, nice techno.

    Technician: Actually I'm sending out the construction sequence for the storage module for the ISS.

    Dude: Woaw.... Rock on.

  • Quality Control (Score:3, Interesting)

    by broken_bones ( 307900 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:56PM (#4682428)
    I would have to imagine that quality control on something like this would be a nightmare. I didn't see anything in the article that talked about refining the pulverized asteroid. One would think that if you had a non uniform mix of materials it would affect the structural integrity of whatever you're building. Still the idea is really intriguing:

    1. Break Rocks
    2. Compress with radio wave "force field" (now how cool is that?)
    3. ???
    4. Profit

    I know it's an overused joke but, in this case, it seems to me to be exactly what they're talking about.
  • Wouldn't building, using only radio waves and debris, require an absolutely monstrous amount of energy? How is this helpful compared to some other approach?

  • The moral... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Quaoar ( 614366 ) on Friday November 15, 2002 @08:59PM (#4682441)
    When Earth is threatened by a large asteroid, everyone should turn their radios on and play loud, annoying music until the rock explodes.
  • An interesting idea, but the article seems to skim over just how much power would be needed to manipulate physical objects over and great distace (even in a perfect vacuum). I don't know enough about the physical processes involved, but from what I know about solar sails (several meters of reflective surface to move a gram or two), it'd likely take a phenomenal amount of energy to do this. (Someone please correct me if my numbers are wrong and/or there is a different mechanism is being suggested here, please...)

    The only way I can imagine gathering this much energy would be with a massive solar array, one of incredibly large porportions...

    ...so massive that it would be best built using directed radio energy.

    PS - I leave issues of inertia of the transmitting station and also the subtantial risks of a misfire/hijack of one of these transmitters into an inhabited settlement as exercises for the astute reader...

    • I _do_ know about the physical processes involved, and while I'm a physicist rather than an engineer (and hence less quick at estimating these things), this idea sounds completetly loony. You'd need to transmit an enormous amount of power to move a big chunk of rock even a small distance, because the power radiated by your transmitter will fall off rapidly with distance, and the rock will only absorb a small part of the radio wave anyway (for the same reason the walls of your house don't block radio reception).

      And don't forget - NASA is funding research into an anti-gravity machine too, so the fact that they may be taking this seriously is no sign that it makes any sense....
  • I am the Pusher Robot: I use radio waves to shove around the blind people.
  • The team named their idea "Tailored Force Fields". I prefer "Tractor Beam" :)


    -m

  • Isn't that what his supercomputer Deep Thought did to forge the space ship on the planet Kricket, thus causing the eventual near destruction of Life, the Univers and Everything?

    Sigh. No new ideas.

    -FC
  • Pardon our dust?

  • Quick Q. (Score:4, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) <mark&seventhcycle,net> on Friday November 15, 2002 @09:26PM (#4682600) Homepage
    So, would that mean they'd use some Nine Inch Nails to fasten the structures together?

    I like the sound of that.

  • Oh, this is fantastic! Instead of launching building materials into space, you could simply supergun [std.com] material into orbit or, safer, Lagrange points [nasa.gov] for longer-term parking, and then coagulate and shape them as needed. Of course space material could be used but if that was impractical for the need -- such as not providing the type of radiation shielding needed, for example -- this would be a cheap alternative.

    This is the best news I've heard all day.
  • How about this: we capture a small asteroid into Earth orbit, and equipped it such that we could nudge it into different orbits. Then we could steer it into the path of an incoming killer asteroid -- not to smash it but to barely miss it, gravitationally dragging the bad boy off course to miss the Earth.

    Remembering an earlier /. posting [slashdot.org] about using force fields to assemble objects in space, maybe we could even build our own guardian asteroid from bits and pieces rather than going out and getting one.

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