While the term “beam up smudge” may not be spoken, NASA flight surgeon Dr. Vulcan saluted when Joseph Schmidt appeared on the International Space Station through a process called “holoporting”. NASA recently revealed that in October, Schmidt and other team members became the first humans to holoport in space from Earth, CNET reports. Schmidt described holoportation as “a kind of capture technology that allows people to recreate high-quality 3D models, compress them and transmit them live anywhere in real time.” The team members were able to see and talk to the ISS astronauts and they performed the first “holoportation handshake”.
Schmid was joined by Fernando de la Pena Laka, CEO of software provider Aexa Aerospace. NASA says this is the first time the technology has been in operation since 2016, in “extreme and remote environments like space” and “we will use it for our private medical conferences, private psychiatric conferences, private family conferences.” According to dot com, NASA is considering integrating the technology with augmented reality, allowing holoporters to orbit the space station and haptics, which can mimic touch through space or motors.
“This is a completely new way of communicating over long distances,” Schmidt said in a statement. “Besides, this is a brand new way of human exploration, where our human existence is able to travel across the planet. Our physical body is not there, but our human existence is completely there.” NASA says the technology could be used in future missions to Mars and in extreme environments like Antarctica on Earth.