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On the Horizon: Three Science and Technology Trends That Could Affect Society.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined how these three applied sciences might evolve over the following decade. These transformative applied sciences are trending towards maturity and may have congressional consideration over the following 10 years.
These applied sciences are:
- Neural implants for human augmentation.
- General objective robots.
- Orbital particles removing applied sciences.
Orbital particles
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GAO experiences that there are greater than 15,000 items of orbital particles at present tracked, with greater than one million items which are too small to trace however can nonetheless injury satellites and different spacecraft that present necessary companies.
Technology is in growth to actively take away, relocate, or repurpose massive, non-tumbling particles. This might cut back the danger of a catastrophic cascade of collisions, however wouldn’t get rid of it as a result of small or tumbling particles represent the overwhelming majority of harmful particles.
Legal difficulties
Further growth and use of novel applied sciences could also be hampered by potential authorized difficulties posed by the Outer Space Treaty.
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Policymakers might think about a spread of choices, together with supporting focused analysis to fill technological gaps or initiating authorized analyses to develop options to authorized difficulties.
GAO isn’t making suggestions however has recognized a number of coverage issues for the Congress and others to weigh as these applied sciences proceed creating.
Image credit score: GAO
Read the complete report — On the Horizon: Three Science and Technology Trends That Could Affect Society – go to:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-26-108079.pdf
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