Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/83317
THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF STORYTELLING, HUMANKIND HAS imagined a future world far different from the present. From the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to onscreen epics like "Buck Rogers" and "Star Trek," technological advances depicted in a not-too-distant future have astonished and amazed—and even spurred real-life scientific advances of their own. But how close does science fiction's speculation come to what is possible in our world? While many themes like time travel violate the known laws of physics and alien invasions have yet to occur, novelists and visionaries of the past have made predictions about future technologies that sometimes ring very true to reality. Verne's 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon" foretold many of the events of the Apollo 11 mission more than 100 years later, including his technical description of the space capsule, the launch site in Florida and the return landing in the Pacific Ocean. While these details matched the future outcome of man's exploration of space, there were some technologies that writers of his time could not begin to imagine. Apollo 11's commander Neil Armstrong gave credit to the great thinkers of science fiction like Verne and Wells, but also pointed out that, "no writer had ever envisaged that lunar explorers would be in communication with people on Earth or, even more surprisingly, be able to transmit still pictures or moving images back to Earth." So where does that leave today's creators of science fiction? Knowing what is possible now thanks to advances in computing, communications, photonics, biotechnology and other fields would surely allow experts to correctly guess what the future holds. Here we take a look at how close researchers within Florida's High Tech Corridor are coming to fulfilling the predictions of popular science fiction culture from the past and present, and whether they are breaking new ground on future technology. TO BOLDLy GO Envisioning the future of interstellar space travel and exploring the Final Frontier may have seemed a lot closer during the space race era. Nearly four decades since that first moon landing, humankind has yet to establish a permanent colony on a planet other than Earth. That isn't for lack of effort. In fact, one group of students and professionals at Earthrise Space Inc. (ESI), a nonprofit research institution dedicated to developing space technology in collaboration with industry and academic institutions could be closer to solving some of the challenges leading to moon exploration through the Omega Envoy Project. Ruben Nunez, a recent graduate from the University of Central Florida (UCF), is a founding member of Omega Envoy, one of 26 teams entered into the Google Lunar X PRIZE to successfully launch and land a rover on the moon. The international contest will award $20 million to the winning team that not only lands a rover, but also communicates with it to send back video and other data from the lunar surface by the end of 2015. Nunez's motivation for starting the team was the idea of what he calls "Iron Man Engineering." Like comic icon Tony Stark soldering together scrap metal to make the legendary armored suit, "I thought we could simply build the rover and other spacecraft and make it work," Nunez admits. The team of 12 (including eight students) is hardly tinkering away in a garage configuring parts off the shelf for their entry. With a slew of corporate and public Members of UCF's Omega Envoy team conduct environmental and communication tests with their rover in the remote Arctic Circle. florida.HIGH.TECH 2012 37 sponsors to back their work inside a facility sponsored by the UCF Business Incubator, the team has conducted rigorous environmental and communication tests in the remote Arctic Circle and is currently using a Stratasys 3-D printer to develop rapid prototypes for testing components and other electronics. So what does the future hold after 2015 when private enterprise should have the know-how to land on the moon?