Space. Probably the biggest thing we can ever imagine. How can the smallest things that we can ever imagine be applied to the vastness of space? Well, they definitely won’t play a nano-sized role in the future of space travel.
Speed is hard to come by in space. Well, speed is hard to come by everywhere but in the context of the great distances in our universe, we can never go fast enough. As we know the speed of light is one of the fastest things known to man, so what if we could travel at that speed with light as our engine. Well, that’s where the idea of a solar sail was born. Solar sail propulsion uses sunlight to propel vehicles through space. Solar photons, or sunlight, are reflected off a giant mirror sail that propels the spacecraft.
So where does nanotechnology fit in? Well, these sails need to be of reflective material that is about 40-100 times thinner than a piece of writing paper which as we know is 100,000 nanometers thick. Carbon nanotube-based materials can be used to create these sails as they are strong, lightweight, and extremely thin. Additionally, these nanotubes can be altered at the molecular level to be highly reflective. So, advancements in nanotechnology would be crucial to creating an effective solar sail spacecraft.
But after using a solar sail to travel to a distant planet, exploration is an entirely different beast. Whether that be human exploration or remote exploration, nanotechnology can be used as an upgrade.
What could the space suit of the future look like? Well, hopefully, it will be significantly thinner and lighter allowing astronauts to be more flexible and perform tasks more efficiently. But not only can nanotechnology help improve those aspects of a spacesuit, but it could also tackle one of the most dangerous problems for a spacesuit – tears. It is possible for nanotechnology to allow spacesuits to be self-healing. A gel or metallic nanomaterial layer could reorganize or reassemble itself to repair damage to the space suit, thus making tears a minor inconvenience. Imagine how useful this technology would have been in The Martian.
But if we don’t want to risk the lives of humans just yet, there is another solution that involves the use of nanotechnology as well. Currently, our best feats of planetary exploration have been the few Martian rovers, which have only been able to explore a minuscule portion of the surface of Mars. A new idea that would allow a much, much larger portion of a planet to be explored is the use of nanorobot swarms. Thousands of these robots could be deployed by a rover, and travel all over the surface and atmosphere of a planet collecting data on all sorts of things even on the molecular level. This would allow for a significant increase in much desired scientific discoveries.
So, yes, the smallest things we could ever imagine can help us explore the largest thing we could ever imagine. In all aspects of space exploration, as well. It really is insane to imagine.