In the beginning of the movie Wall-E, the robot works on the Earth gathering the trash. At some point he grips the space shattle and goes to the outer space. He functions equally ok both on Earth and in the space.
Can this happen in real life? Is it possible for our devices like phone, robotic vacuum cleaner or lantern to function in the space or is there any “earthly” conditions required?
If no, what are the requirements for a device to function in the space? What distinguishes a space shattle or satellite from a common lantern, making it usable in the space?
In: Engineering
Some electronics, notably spinning hard disk drives, require certain air pressures to function normally due to their sensitive moving parts.
Modern computers and phones use solid-state storage instead. There are certain parts of a modern phone that directly interact with the air and would either not work or might be damaged in the vacuum of space, such as a microphone, speaker, waterproof seal, motion sensor, etc, but the processor and other essentials should still turn on.
The batteries and temperature could be an issue but it is believable that a smartphone or laptop could work in space… for at least a little while.
As for a robot vacuum, they clean with a combination of gravity to hold them on the ground and airflow to suck up dirt. The electric motors would still spin the brushes (for a little while before battery or heat problems occurred) but even if you had something in space that you wanted to clean, it would not do that function well in space.
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