Space & Astronomy

NASA invests in eight new sci-fi technologies

By T.K. Randall
May 16, 2016

Image: Science Fiction Starship
Credit: Alorin / CC BY-SA 3.0 (adapted) Each year, NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program (NIAC) picks a selection of projects that it hopes will help to revolutionize aeronautics and space travel in the future.

This year's choices include the development of a deep sleep chamber for long space missions and a robotic space habitat that can literally build itself on another world before astronauts arrive there.Each of the winning projects will receive $500,000 to carry out a further two years of study.

"The NIAC program is one of the ways NASA engages the US scientific and engineering communities, including agency civil servants, by challenging them to come up with some of the most visionary aerospace concepts," said Steve Jurczyk of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate. "This year's Phase II fellows have clearly met this challenge."

Other winning concepts this year include an experimental demonstration of 'Plasmonic Force Propulsion', a new type of atmospheric satellite and a large reflective telescope called Aperture.

Source: Vice.com

Tags: NASA