Israeli start-up Spacepharma designed a laboratory able to be used in microgravity environments, and implemented at lower costs than other launchers, according to ILTV News.
ILTV spoke with the co-founder and CEO of Sacepharma Yossi Yamin to discuss the new technology, and its implications for the scientific community.
The Spacepharma CEO said the idea came to him when he was the commander of the Israeli satellite unit, when he and his colleagues realized liquids could be sent into orbit and manipulated in low gravity environments to create medicines, among other things.
Normally these types of projects could only be afforded by large space agencies with extensive defense budgets. Spacepharma condensed it to the size of a milk carton, with business-card sized work spaces to make the project cost-friendly, efficient and space-saving.
The benefits of performing these processes in microgravity environments, according to Yamin, is that it allows the scientists to "detach from Earth" and its gravity. With any physiochemical reaction, gravity plays a factor, and Yamin explains that the same experiment performed on Earth and in space will have completely different reactions, a mostly untapped avenue that could provide numerous possibilities and solutions for the medical and scientific communities.
"Imagine that someone would tell you that you could fly, without wings. You think it's a joke, right? But we can run the same reaction in orbit and get a different result," Yamin explained to ILTV.
The results could then be converted to create a solid mass with the same properties, a process which could be used to make advanced medicines.
Spacepharma has already improved antibiotics in ways unproven prior to the tech's implementation, which could be used to combat future pandemics, and Yamin says he believes that in time, other advances will be created among the stars and then brought back down to Earth.