NASA is really delving into some wild-sounding ideas lately, almost like they’re straight out of a sci-fi book. John Nelson, a NASA rep, even calls them “science fiction-like concepts.” But hey, they’re putting money behind it. The Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program is funding six projects that sound pretty out there, like a lunar railway, a fluid telescope, and a transit system to get stuff to Mars.
These projects just finished their first round of funding and are moving into Phase II, where they’ll get up to $600,000 each to keep going for two more years. But don’t hold your breath for them to become reality just yet. They’re still in the early stages, and there’s no guarantee they’ll pan out. But if they make it through all the hoops, they might just end up on a real-life space mission someday.
NASA’s big into making bigger and better telescopes, but it’s not easy or cheap. Edward Balaban says scaling up current telescope tech to more than 10 meters across just doesn’t make financial sense. That’s where FLUTE comes in. It’s all about making huge space telescopes with liquid mirrors formed in space. They’ve already tested the idea in labs and even on the International Space Station.
And then there’s the pulsed plasma rocket. Right now, we don’t have a good way to zoom through space fast enough to get to Mars in a reasonable time. But Howe Industries might have cracked it with their new rocket. They’re talking about a propulsion system that could get humans to Mars in just two months, which would be a game-changer for space exploration.
