Most of the time, the material used for building satellites and robot explorers is usually metal given its temperature range and durability. Whoever thought wood could be an alternative for the darkest depths of space? Japan did.
On Tuesday, while everyone here in America was either casting votes or impatiently waiting for the results of our Presidential election, Japanese researchers sent the world's first wooden satellite to space. Named LignoSat after the Latin word for wood, the satellite was developed by Kyoto University in collaboration with Sumitomo Forestry, a homebuilding company. It was included in a SpaceX mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and will be released into Earth's orbit for six months.
Constructed of honoki wood, a type of magnolia tree, the satellite will let the researchers experiment to see if wood offers the durability that metal does when faced with the harsh environment of space. Obviously, if the experiment is successful, they plan on making more wooden satellites.
But what's really behind this experiment? According to Takai Doi, an astronaut affiliated with Kyoto University, the idea is the first step in a 50-year plan that includes planting trees and building actual wood houses on the moon and possibly even Mars.
"Early 1900s airplanes were made of wood," said Kyoto University forest science professor Koji Murata. "A wooden satellite should be feasible, too."
The team of researchers conducted a 10-month experiment on the ISS and discovered that honoki wood was the best type of timber suited for space applications. The satellite also doesn't use any screws or wood glue but instead was constructed by using a traditional Japanese crafts technique that doesn't require the aforementioned assembly components.
Maybe you're as skeptical of this idea as I am, so let's talk about some of the benefits. Wood, in theory, is expected to be more durable in space versus on Earth since space doesn't have water or oxygen to cause wood to rot or catch fire. Additionally, we have a lot of space debris.
Currently, in low Earth orbit (LEO), there are around 3,000 satellites. These are the satellites used for communication like Starlink and ISS projects. When you move outside of LEO, we're looking at around 28,000 satellites. That's a lot of debris, and it keeps growing.
The idea with wooden satellites is that they would eventually fall back down to Earth and burn up during re-entry. Metal satellites also burn up during re-entry, but not entirely, and they release harmful aluminum oxide particles. There is currently no plan for dealing with all of our space junk so this could be a stop-gap measure that would help deal with the issue.
I'm still waiting for a "Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century"-style spaceship that holds a community of people to live their lives as normal, but maybe trees and houses on the moon will come first.
