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

250x less

[DAldredge]

It costs more than 250 times their yearly budget to fly one shuttle mission...That is a sad joke, I bet there budget is less than what NASA spends each year to fly the NASA highups around the country.

The most important thing said in the article

[cft_128]

The most important thing said in the article was a quote by an analyst "It's impossible to make breakthroughs if all you're funding is immediate, near-term applications".

In society today we all seem to concentrate on short term benefits and ignore the long term consequences, be it government budget deficits, long term research funding, balking at online music distribution, moving jobs off shore or the environment.

4 Milion.. is pocket change

[NoMercy]

Goverments deal in milions, 50 milion there, 20 milion there, the cost of some piece of stupid artwork to stick at the end of a bridge cost a insane ammount of money while another piece of local-goverment artwork is spiraling though milions of dolars while its schedule is pushed furthur and furthur back...

Benifit of this is, a) the costs are fixed, b) we might just get that anti-mater powered probe to aplha-centuri ;)

Re:I hope they keep their funding...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

If GE invents superior cabling, then only GE and its licensees get to use it, and they pass the cost on to you, the consumer. If NASA invents superior cabling, then everybody (including GE) can use it to deliver better products (including suspension bridges) at a lower price.

Government expenditure on science is an investment by the people of the US (or whatever country is doing the spending) -- and one which (especially in the case of NASA) has quite often had a rate of return on investment which few if any private R&D operations can match.