• Question: Do you believe that one day we will one day have the technology to mimic the technology featured in Star Wars or Star Trek (e.g. Lightsabers, Laser guns, Real Darth Vader Costumes etc.)?

    Asked by antimatteroffact to Ben, Jony, Katharine, Mark, Peter on 22 Nov 2011. This question was also asked by sare13, levi6398.
    • Photo: Mark Basham

      Mark Basham answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      hi antimatteroffact,

      Not sure if we will be able to mimic it all, but I would suspect that lots of it is possible with enough effort. As for Darth Vader suit, there are already some pretty amazing prosthetic limbs and organ replacement systems which are portable out there, so I wouldn’t think it will be that far away. Although I suspect it would be designed to look a little less intimidating 🙂

    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      I think so – Sci Fi has driven many areas of technology and people want what they see in the movies. Somethings though, such as teleportation, I don’t think will ever be a reality unless there is a big re-think on how Nature works.

    • Photo: Peter Williams

      Peter Williams answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      Actually this is a surprisingly important question.

      In the 1980’s Ronald Reagan funded the Strategic Defense Initiative. This was dubbed “Star Wars” in the press. The aim was to provide a shield against an attack on the US by Soviet ballistic missiles. From 1984 to 1993 $37 billion was spent on SDI.

      One of the programs funded by SDI was called “Directed Energy Weapons”. The idea is you build a laser on the ground powerful enough to shoot down a missile in space. The program failed, but the technologies developed later led to advances in particle physics, free electron lasers and supercomputing.

      Read all about it here https://www.llnl.gov/etr/pdfs/11_94.2.pdf

    • Photo: Jony Hudson

      Jony Hudson answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      We already do! You’ve seen an iPad/tablet and a smartphone, right? They’re basically like the things out of Star Trek. GPS always amazes me too, that it tells you exactly where you are, pretty much by magic.

    • Photo: Katharine Schofield

      Katharine Schofield answered on 22 Nov 2011:

      I just got a smartphone, and I sure feel like the future is here.

Comments