Journal justanyone's Journal: What's Needed: Technological Developments List 1
It occurs to me every once in a while that, "Hey, it'd be great if someone invented something to solve the problem of...". The trouble is, I'm not collecting this list of ideas that we need to solve, so I'm going to do it now.
1. NewHeart: Body parts regeneration. This should include regenerating any part of the body and only affect the local area (not have too many side effects like growing a 6th finger or an extra nose).
2. Widespread rejuvination of existing cells, a 'de-aging' process that returns cell function to teenage levels. Should be systemic. Should extend lifespan to 300 years at a functional age of 20. Should virtually eliminate old age as a cause of death except among those who choose not to participate or accept treatment.
3. "SoberUp Pill" Drug/chemical that bonds to ethyl alcohol to form an inert, easily excretable substance (prevents alcohol poisoning, allows people who have to drive to sober up quickly and easily).
4. Cheap Beta Decay Inducer: a device/method to induce beta decay in an atom. This could provide power and also remediate radioactive substances. Note, this process would have to be cheap and release more power than it consumes.
5. Photovoltaic plastic sheeting for less than $1 per kilowatt. This is half of allowing most people to produce their own homes' electric power.
6. Highly efficient and inexpensive inverter technology, to convert DC to AC efficiently and cheaply. This is the second requirement for people to self-generate power.
7. Electric storage (battery, ultracapacitor) that can store lots of energy in a very high density format, low weight, low cost.
8. Highly reliable, low cost space transportation; surface-to-orbit for $100/kg (approx. the same cost as airline travel).
9. VTOL vehicles suitable for and cheap enough for the majority of people to use them , reducing needs for ever-expanding road system capacity.
10. Technology (unknown) to quickly cure any viral or bacteriological infection of unknown origin (prevents bio-warfare).
11. Effective systems and methods to identify and cure antisocial behavior including drug addictions and reduce recitivism in criminals.
7 and 8 (Score:1)
Give me energy storage. The main problem isn't the lack of free energy - it's the ability to move it around and store it for when you need it, and release it at a controlled rate. Biology solves such problems with things like fat, but this is too complex, messy and low density for what we want. The ultimate would be the ability to make substantial amounts of antimatter and store it safely.
Cheap space transportation is cool, too. It wouldn't necessarily make spacecraft cheap, but less expensive, certain