Engineering From Science Fiction

An anonymous reader writes "NASA's long planning horizon today details a history of science facts and their sci-fi roots. The study is based on a collaborative European Space Agency project, 'Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for Space Applications.' More than 200 technical dossiers are described--from holodecks to terraforming comets--but one of the fundamental questions posed is: what is the best communication device to scale-up expert opinion itself? Other than some future, expert version of the internet itself, is that a a collaborative Matrix? Other such interesting collections are from: MIT Media Lab's ThinkCycle, Da Vinci Institute, and the unpretentious HalfBakery of ideas."

Comments

Re:It WILL get /.ed

[Anonymous Coward]

Karma whore.

So let me get this straight...

[Paulrothrock]

The ESA is going to spend money and time reading science fiction and talking about the neat stuff they do in it, and then they're gonna write a paper on it?

Why don't they develop a heavy lift booster? Or technologies that will help us live on the Martian surface? Or a project to sample the water ice that's been found under the soil on Mars and see what kind of volatile chemicals are present?

Looks like the ESA is gonna end up like NASA; bloated and going nowhere fast.