| | |  Technology News | September 2009 
The Cut-Price $6M Man: Scientists Say They can Recreate Him... for Just £150,000
 Daily Mail UK
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September 13, 2009
Thirty-five years ago TV writers thought it would cost $6million to create a bionic man.
That's around £3.7million. However, these days scientists claim they could knock a real one together for about £150,000.
They say products exist to allow those who have lost their legs to walk, give limited vision to those who are blind, and to create super-human strength.
In the Six Million Dollar Man astronaut Steve Austin, played by Lee Majors, was left horribly injured after his craft crashed.
The opening sequence of the 1970s TV series featured an off- camera voice intoning: 'Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.'
Austin was given a bionic arm and legs and an artificial zoom-lens eye.
British scientists at the Institution of Engineers say they have identified developments that mean it is possible to create a real version of this superman.
The Institution's Engineering & Technology magazine has brought together these innovations to show how they could work.
Magazine editor Dickon Ross said: 'Anybody who grew up with the Six Million Dollar man is probably surprised that we're not already running at super speeds and jumping over buildings.
'But behind the scenes there are some really exciting developments, many by British companies, that are being made and at costs that are bringing the technology from science fiction to science fact.'
There is the Ossur Power Knee, made by a company based in Iceland, which is the world's first powered bionic artificial body part for above knee amputees. It automatically synchronises its motion with that of the sound leg.
Touch Bionics has created the i-LIMB, which is a powered hand. The articulated fingers are controlled by wires which receive muscle signals from the arm.
Berkeley Bionics of the UK have developed an exoskeleton comprised of two powered anthropomorphic legs, a small on-board computer and a backpack-like frame for bearing weights which no ordinary person could carry for long.
Staff at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London have enhanced the sight of members of the Special Forces, giving them a vital advantage on the battlefield, while tests are being carried out on technology to bring limited vision to those who have lost their sight.
This could lead to developments to enhance ordinary vision. |
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