NASA Begins to build “ShapeShifters” and “Biobots”

NASA recently announced that it’s going ahead with building and testing its 25 pilot technology proposals. These new concepts are nothing like anyone has ever designed before, they include out of the box concepts like shapeshifters, biobots, balloon locomotion, telescope swarms and many others.  

“The NIAC program gives NASA the opportunity to explore visionary ideas that could transform future NASA missions by creating radically better or entirely new concepts while engaging America’s innovators and entrepreneurs as partners in the journey. The concepts can then be evaluated for potential inclusion into our early stage technology portfolio.” said Jim Reuter, acting associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Biobot is a robot that would carry an astronaut’s essentials around, while the astronaut roams about freely exploring the new planet. It will work similar to the principle of an umbilical cord. This would add a lot of extra time for the astronaut to explore, before he runs out of the vital necessities.

Marsbee is one other project that is going to guide the Martian rovers navigate. Marsbee will be an aerial assist to the rovers and will help them decide on what places to avoid, what places to explore etc. SPARROW is a steam powered robot that will explore planets that are equipped with oceans. PROCSIMA is a based on “Diffractionless Beamed Propulsion” principle, designed to travel mighty distances of this universe.

“The 2018 Phase I competition was especially fierce, with over 230 proposals and only 25 winners,” said the NIAC program executive, Jason Derleth.