Old-School Sci-Fi Star Wars Tech That's Since Become Reality

"Star Wars" has tons of ship-to-ship laser battles and lightsaber duels that light up the big screen. Audiences cheered when Luke shot down his first tie fighter, and gasped in horror when Alderaan exploded from the awesome power of the Death Star.

But "Star Wars" didn't just inspire the fans. Lockheed Martin developed their own miniature Death Star Superlaser. It may not be able to destroy a planet, but the deck-mounted Layered Laser Defense (LLD) just underwent trials and successfully shot down several drones and a simulated cruise missile.

While the U.S. military currently relies on conventional weapons, the Navy already has one ship equipped with a militarized laser. As technology improves, there is no doubt that laser-based weaponry will become more common.

Laser weaponry may already be in use, but if you're waiting to get your hands on the iconic lightsaber, you may have a long while to wait. The technology to create a working lightsaber that can cut through carbonite like butter simply doesn't exist. Daring engineers have made some devices that can melt through steel, but they're currently just decorative fire sticks or plasma torches that require you to carry a fuel tank on your back.

Droids were at the core of almost every major event in the "Star Wars" storyline. Wherever Luke, Anakin, or Rey went C-3PO, R2-D2, or BB-8 were right behind them. Droids filled every conceivable role in the "Star Wars" universe and, in our galaxy, droids are also becoming more ubiquitous.

Assembly lines and human factory workers have largely been replaced by precision robots. They've been around for years as the unseen mechanical workforce of today and while they're not plucky robot companions like R2-D2, that eventuality may be more reality than fiction.

Companies like Boston Dynamics have spent the last several decades developing an honest-to-goodness humanoid robot. The newest iteration of the Atlas humanoid robot can independently pick up and move objects, navigate a parkour course, and do a backflip. It looks like something straight out of Star Wars, but better. The Atlas' range of motion is surprisingly better than its onscreen counterpart C-3PO.

If you've ever wanted your own quirky pet-like robot companion similar to R2-D2 or BB-8, be sure to add Boston Dynamics' Spot to your wishlist. While Spot is an incredible feat of modern engineering, he's not very cuddly and will set you back around $75,000 to own.

Hovercars and other floating "Speeders" are a staple of science fiction and the preferred way to get around planetside whether you're on Tattooine or Endor. But what if you're on Earth?

Hovercraft technology has been around in one form or another since the 1950s, but we still put rubber to the road when it comes to the morning commute. This is mainly because attempting to drive a hovercraft to work is an extremely expensive (not to mention, inefficient) option. You might as well hire a helicopter to drop you off at work.

This doesn't mean that cars will always be the kings of the road, however. Hovercrafts enjoyed a bit of a renaissance in the early 21st century when we started seeing stylish and speedy hovercraft designs that remind us all of a Landspeeder, cruising across the deserts of Tatooine. Nowadays, YouTube is filled with garage engineers and motivated individuals who have made their very own speeders and hovercrafts.

If you want to get your hands on your very own Speeder, look no further than Aerwins Technologies, a startup from Japan. Aerwins is one of the first companies to bring a commercial speeder to life. The Xturismo looks like it could have been in any of the new "Star Wars" sequels. It's sleek, hovers, and flies, but it's loud enough to blow out the eardrums of anyone standing nearby.

The exotic locales in "Star Wars" have sparked the imaginations of generations of viewers. Mustafar held a hidden base in the depths of a volcanic planet, Bespin is home to the Cloud City, and the Gungans live in underwater cities in the oceans of Naboo.

These fantastical locations are the stuff of great science fiction, but one is much closer to reality... the underwater cities of Naboo. Living underwater raises numerous problems that as humans, we're not naturally able to handle. However, there are several jobs that require people to live and work underwater for long periods of time.

Saturation divers live in pressurized pods for weeks at a time so that they can work at great depths either welding or maintaining underwater equipment. Staying in a pressurized environment is key to continually living at depth. Although the pressurized pod is usually above water and they are lowered in a pressurized bell capsule, divers are not allowed to leave until their month-long shift is up.

It's not quite an underwater city, but the Project Tektite research habitat is the closest thing in recent history (Tektite III was dismantled in 1991). Project Tektite was a submersible research lab that broke the record for the longest continuous underwater saturation dive at 58 days. NASA also conducts astronaut training in its own underwater facility — albeit in a pool, not in open water.

Underwater cities may yet become a reality as companies like the Shimizu Corporation look to the ocean as the next big real estate market. The Shimizu Corporation has designed a future underwater city concept called Ocean Spiral that wouldn't look out of place in the next Star Wars production.

One of the most enduring scenes in all of the "Star Wars" movies is when Han Solo is lowered into a pit and frozen in a solid brick of carbonite. When "The Empire Strikes Back" was released, humans weren't yet successfully freezing themselves in any sort of material (not long-term, anyway). 

Now, you too can freeze your loved ones to thaw out later with cryogenic technology. However, that's only true if your loved ones are fish embryos. Similar to "Star Wars" carbonite freezing, cryogenics attempts to rapidly freeze a creature or human so that tissue is not damaged. They then must be revived at the proper temperature and rate to avoid damage to the frozen tissues.

Since its inception, there have been approximately 500 people who have opted to have their bodies cryogenically frozen in liquid nitrogen in the hopes that they can be successfully revived when modern medicine has come up with a cure for what ailed them.

While researchers say the science is feasible, currently, the technology to successfully revive anything larger than roundworms or fish embryos has proven unsuccessful, but it's in the realm of possibility.

Cryogenics and carbonite freezing have been a staple of science fiction and are even possible solutions for long-term space travel. However, until scientists can consistently freeze and revive humans, this practice will remain in its experimental stages. You can still pay to have you or your loved ones frozen, but they'll have to remain frozen until science catches up to fiction.

If you've never heard of Vibroblades you're probably not alone. Vibroblades were standard weaponry in the Old Republic days of "Star Wars" when Jedi and Sith were more common figures in the galaxy.

Vibroweapons like Vibroswords, Vibroblades, and Vibroaxes were just like their non-moving counterparts, but they vibrated at a high frequency that allowed them to cut through armor and steel just like a lightsaber. As far as official canon goes, they not only feature in "Star Wars" video games, but Din Djarin, the hero of the first several seasons of "The Mandalorian," is known to carry a Vibroblade knife in his boot.

If you'd like to carry around a vibrating knife that can cut through the toughest materials, you may need something a little larger than a boot to carry it around in. Vibrating or ultrasonic blades are real, and can be used for both commercial and industrial uses. They tend to require a lot of energy and need to be plugged into a power outlet, making them a little impractical as a boot knife.

Rather than slicing through armor, today, ultrasonic blades are commonly used in surgeries or for cutting food. In the operating room, these blades are known as ultrasonically activated scalpels (UAS) and can both rapidly cut and coagulate the blood during an operation to minimize bleeding in a patient. This tool has allowed many general and laparoscopic surgeries to be less invasive with improved precision and simplified processes.

A tractor beam is in the very first scene of "Star Wars: A New Hope" when the Empire attempts to capture Princess Leia. Tractor beams make another appearance later on in that same movie and are shut down just in time to allow the Millenium Falcon and crew to escape from the Death Star.

Believe it or not, tractor beams have existed for some time, albeit on a much smaller scale than in science fiction. Microscopic tractor beams, also known as optical tweezers are used in scientific and medical research to manipulate tiny nanoparticles and even atoms.

Arthur Ashkin won the 2018 Nobel Prize for the development of optical tweezers. These mini tractor beams or optical tweezers can be used to pick up microscopic objects like individual bacteria without harming them. These devices are still in use by the scientific community as a way to control and isolate small particles in biological research.

Research published in Optics Express by a pair of researchers in China outlined how they were able to move a macroscopic object (visible to the naked eye) using only lasers. These scientists were able to point a laser at an object and force it to move far enough to be detected by the human eye without any additional measuring instruments.

As exciting as that sounds, the object in question was designed specifically for this experiment and was only moved a few centimeters. This is not going to allow police officers to swap out their radar speed guns for tractor beams, but it does prove that the science behind tractor beams is possible.