NASA Funds Sci-Fi Technology

Michael Huang writes "Wired News profiles the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), the $4 million-a-year agency most famous for Bradley Edwards' study of the space elevator. Lesser known studies include weather control, shape-shifting space suits and antimatter-powered probes to Alpha Centauri. Remember, 'if it's not risky, it's not going to get funded'."

Comments

Re:I hope they keep their funding...

[xmath]

Quoting the site:

The first space elevator would reduce lift costs immediately to $100 per pound, as compared to current launch costs, which are $10,000-$40,000 per pound, depending upon destination and choice of rocket launch system.

Plus, if you look at their studies it seems they have figured out pretty much everything already. The only technical detail they're waiting for is a sufficiently strong carbon nanotube composite to make the cable of, and they're already making good progress there. After that, apparently it becomes just an engineering/funding problem.

Of course the studies could be mistaken, but still it's definitely not in the pure "Sci-Fi" category anymore. With a bit of luck, we'll still live to see it built. :-)

for those who don't get the above joke...

[funny-jack]

Actually, Mr. Fuller had domes. The balls referred to above have his name in honor of the domes.

Re:I hope they keep their funding...

[Saige]

Cause, of course, we haven't seen every single technical article that describes the space elevator in any sort of techincal detail mention that it would be a wide but extremely thin ribbon that, were it ever to break or be cut, would float down with not even enough kinetic energy to hurt a person. That coupled with the fact that any sections not far enough into the atmosphere to be slowed that way would, upon reentering the atmosphere and building up a bit of heat, disintegrate.

In other words, if their engineering ideas are even close, the only place we'll see a big disaster caused by a space elevator cable coming down is fiction.