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From NASA and the Makers of the Hoverboard: Tractor Beams

The now-famous hoverboard company will work over the next few years to tug NASA’s tiny satellites.
Image: Wikipedia

Arx Pax, the California company that brought you the 90-pound magnetic hoverboard that actually works and lasts 10-15 minutes, has its eyes set on bringing a grander sci-fi trope to life. It's teaming up with NASA to create small prototype tractor beams over the next few years, according to a statement released today.

Tractor beams allow you to grab and manipulate distant objects, like an invisible pulley. And NASA wants Arx Pax to build a tractor beam that can grab microsatellites from afar. The idea, though it's existed since the dawn of science fiction and has been a popular staple since Star Trek kept referring to it, has eluded scientists for much of the 20th century. Only recently were we able to pull in objects over small distances.

But NASA saw something in Arx Pax's "Magnetic Field Architecture" technology, which allows for stable magnetic repulsion off passive surfaces—in the hoverboard's case it floated above a bed of copper. The team had plans for extending the field to much bigger objects, though. They'll get their chance to have their devices hover amongst the stars soon enough.