Today, lightweight aircraft parts are being manufactured using similar weaving technologies. This will be expanded to include spacecraft heatshield applications. The system will enhance performance using advanced design tools with cost savings from a shortened product development and testing cycle. There's a problem with your browser or settings. Follow this link to skip to the main content. To understand why NASA is interested in a device like this, you have to understand a little about physics in space.
A major problem faced by astronauts in space is bone loss and muscle atrophy due to a lack of use. Pulley: Generally on shorter trips, the bone and muscle density problem can be easily managed, but longer-duration missions pose a much greater threat to crew health and performance. Here on Earth, we use our legs every day to walk around, but on orbit, the astronauts are in microgravity, so muscles and bones, especially those in the legs, aren't being used as they would be normally.
Because of this, muscles weaken, and bones begin to lose their density. As a result, some astronauts come back to Earth with up to 30 percent less bone structure in their legs and with significantly weakened muscles. To combat this, NASA doctors prescribe a strict regimen of exercise on orbit, but there is only so much that can be done.
Generally there is a treadmill and other bulky devices used to keep in shape, but these only provide limited success. The X1 may be able to change that. Rea: I guess one of the biggest things for NASA and their astronauts is keeping their astronauts safe and keeping them fit and keeping them in good shape. We're looking at, in the next few years, we're gonna start sending astronauts to the Space Station for year-long missions instead of just six months, right? And so how do we keep them fit?
How do we look at muscle density loss and bone density loss and muscle atrophy and things like that? If we look at a device like this, look how much-- you can see how much smaller and compact it is. And this is really gonna hopefully pave the way towards smaller technologies for countermeasures that we can use when we're in a smaller capsule and we want to go back to the moon and out to Mars. So the goal in Space Station, we're looking at two different things right now.
We're looking at it for dynamometry applications, which is basically measuring muscle strength. And so we've been working with the Human Health and Performance group and saying, "Wouldn't it be great "if we had a device on Space Station "that we could use to measure muscle strength while they're up there?
You go use the treadmill or the stationary bike, and then maybe once a month or once every two weeks, you use the X1 as a dynamometry application so we can measure your muscle strength, and we can really start to close the loop with the physicians on the ground and the prescriptions of exercise that they're giving the astronauts to see how effective they are. You know, at its core, it's a mobility assistance device, so you can imagine that, when we go to Mars, no matter how much you exercise along the way, you're gonna be very tired when you get there.
And so now maybe we can use this not only for exercise, but you can use it for mobility assistance when you get there, 'cause you're gonna be weak. All of your joints that are actuated, you can use them to resist you, or you can use them to assist you. Pulley: NASA is very interested in the X1 for use in space, and this same device could also be a game changer for anyone who needs rehabilitation, like stroke victims.
X1 could be even more life-changing for paraplegics. Early on in its development, the team partnered with the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. This group has been working on a mobility device that could serve as the legs for wheelchair-bound patients.
Rea: At that time, they had their own exoskeleton that they had developed called Mina v0, and they were really focused on mobility assistance, helping persons with paraplegia get up out of the wheelchair, walking again.
And at that same time, we had, you know, Robonaut, which we had just flown to Space Station. We worked on all this hardware. We developed all the actuators and all the mechanical and electrical assemblies for that. We developed all the safety systems in order to be able to send it to Space Station, and so we said, "Well, why don't we come together "and we take that knowledge that we have "about building these structures? Pulley: The X1 has the potential to change the lives of anyone suffering from limited mobility.
When asked, many paraplegics say just being able to stand, reach the top of a shelf, or have a conversation with another person at eye level can improve their quality of life significantly. Much work is going into the X1 to make it as accessible to as many people as possible. It is relatively lightweight and has been designed in a way where it can be adjusted to fit many different body types. And for persons who have lost their ability to walk, there is also a prerecorded walking gait that can be adjusted to help them learn to walk again.
In this iteration of the X1, paraplegics must still use crutches to help them balance and walk, but the hope is that the technology will develop to where the device can be utilized without crutches. I think people will be saying, "Oh, let me go get that out of my closet because I'm ready to go out and walk around. Rovekamp: Sometimes technologies develop slowly and incrementally, and sometimes things happen all at once.
There's a term, "the tipping point. All these technologies happen at the same time, and people are grasping that opportunity to really-- to make a difference. So it's not only changing the lives of astronauts, improving their health, but it's also improving lives here on Earth. We feel that it's not just game-changing. It's actually life-changing. Pulley: Spaceflight has many obstacles, one of which is weight. Any mission off this planet has a weight restriction.
If manufacturing costs could be brought down as well, millions of dollars could be saved on each launch. Two NASA California centers have been selected to develop new space-aged technologies that could be game-changers in the way we look at planets from above and how we safely transport robots or humans through space and bring them safely back to Earth.
The higher the temperature at which an infrared detector can operate, the less power is required to cool it. Reduced power needs can translate into operational cost and system weight savings. If successful, this sensor technology could be used in many future NASA Earth and planetary science instruments, as well as for U. The weight and volume savings allow for more compact instruments -- an important consideration for a spacecraft's payload size and cost.
This state-of-the-art technology also will have applications for commercial instrument manufacturers. The project is a revolutionary approach to thermal protection system design and manufacturing for extreme environments.
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