22 ideas about to change our life

Future technology: 22 ideas that will change our life

Space drones  

Team of NASA engineers wants to put drones on Mars. These flying robotic sentinels could reach more of the Martian surface, and possibly solar system moons or the dark, sunless craters on asteroids.

Autonomous quad copters — the four-propeller flying craft commonly called drones— are fast, flexible, use little power and can get into (and out of) tight spaces. But they work only with an atmosphere to propel through. Now, the Swamp Works team at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is developing a drone like robot that works in dark, low- or no-atmosphere environments, and can recharge itself by returning to its lander mother ship.

"This is a prospecting robot," Rob Mueller, senior technologist for advanced projects at Swamp Works, said in a statement. "The first step in being able to use resources on Mars or an asteroid is to find out where the resources are. They are most likely in hard-to-access areas where there is permanent shadow. Some of the crater walls are angled 30 degrees or more, and that's far too steep for a traditional rover to navigate or climb."

 Elon Musk's supersonic 760mph train

 Hate commuting? Imagine, instead, your train carriage hurtling down a tunnel at the same speed as a commercial jet airliner. That’s the dream of PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. His Hyperloop system would see ‘train’ passengers travel at up to 760mph through a vacuum tube, propelled by compressed air and induction motors. A site has been chosen with the goal of starting test runs in two years. Once built, the loop will ferry passengers between San Francisco and LA in 35 minutes, compared to 7.5 hours by train.

  Coffee power

London’s coffee industry creates over 200,000 tonnes of waste every year, so what do we do with it? Entrepreneur Arthur Kay’s big idea is to use his company, bio-bean, to turn 85 per cent of coffee waste into biofuels for heating buildings and powering transport.

Drown forest fires in sound

Forest fires could one day be dealt with by drones that would direct loud noises at the trees below. Since sound is made up of pressure waves, it can be used to disrupt the air surrounding a fire, essentially cutting off the supply of oxygen to the fuel. At the right frequency, the fire simply dies out, as researchers at George Mason University in Virginia recently demonstrated with their sonic extinguisher. Apparently, bass frequencies work best.

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