The U.S. Air Force is developing a freeze jet –

A University of Virginia professor believes he has figured out how to make a freeze ray work in real life. Unlike the one used by Mr. Freeze, Captain Cold, and so on, this one will not be used to literally ice our enemies, but it can help cool jets and spacecraft at high altitudes.

The U.S. Air Force is so interested in the professor’s discovery that it has awarded the laboratory behind it a $750,000 grant to study how to maximize the technology. “With the Air Force and space power, you are in space, which is a vacuum, or you are in the upper atmosphere, where there is very little air that can cool,” said Professor Patrick Hopkins. “So what happens is your electronics get hotter and hotter and hotter. And you can’t bring a load of coolant on board, because that increases the weight and you lose efficiency.”

While it may not be the device we’ve seen in movies, games and comic books, it would certainly help bring a lightweight cooling solution to spacecraft, perhaps allowing us to explore deeper into the unknown.

Would you like your own freeze ray?