SPHERICAL Mars robots, space buildings made using radio waves and motion-powered space suits. These far-out ideas and others should once again be studied by NASA, a panel has recommended.
鈥淔ar-out ideas such as motion-powered space suits should once again be studied by NASA鈥�
狈础厂础鈥檚 (NIAC) was founded in 1998 to harvest futuristic ideas for space flight and aeronautics. It received $4 million a year, about 0.02 per cent of 狈础厂础鈥檚 annual budget, and funded more than 100 projects that no one else would touch because of their sci-fi overtones. A combination of budget constraints and internal politics meant NIAC was shut down in 2007.
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Now a US National Research Council committee has called for the organisation鈥檚 return. The committee found that NIAC was successful right up until its final days. 鈥淭hey were definitely living up to their contract at the time they were terminated,鈥� says committee co-chair Robert Braun, a professor of space technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
Three NIAC-funded projects are now 鈥渙n a path toward one day being a NASA mission鈥�, Braun says, including a prototype plasma rocket, an X-ray interferometer that is being considered for 狈础厂础鈥檚 mission, and a 鈥�star shade鈥�, which could help existing space telescopes search for extrasolar planets.
Other projects have had unexpected medical spin-offs, including a skintight space suit that can help children with cerebral palsy walk. 鈥淭he topics that they invested in鈥� were very advanced in terms of far-out thinking,鈥� says Braun, but adds that 鈥渁 decent percentage had the possibility of turning into something鈥�.
The committee does say that NIAC should keep its feet a little closer to the ground, though. It should focus on projects for 鈥�10 years and beyond鈥� rather than closer to 40 years, says Braun.