Slashdot Mirror
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'."
Gee. Sounds like Heinlein's "Long Range Foundation".
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
NASA is getting into space things? That's odd.
When I skimmed the article summary I was going to write a comment complaining th at NASA should be investing in "proven technologeis". After all, it's the "proven technologeis" that help us about our daily lifes and help us fulfilll ourselves: space elevators don't enter into it, right? Besides, NASA needs to bring in some green and they can only do that by making proprietry software and crafts.
But then I realised something important; no matter how important it is for NASA to make money, we still have to spend money to make money. Even if spending money on space lifts causes taxes to get nothced up by a few dollars, it will all be worth it in a few decades because we will all benefit from the advanced cabling tech. Besides, every dollar that's spent on this is another dolll ar that isn't spent on military applications or other less savoury things.
Still, judging by their website, I'm a little suspicious of what they're up to! ;-) I guess their just busy working on something cool like transforming space suits, heh. Keep up the good articals, simoniger. (The shape-shifting space suits are almost certainly more useful than the shape-shifting trainers I saw linkked on Fark, anyway.)
nigritude ultramarine
Be honest, you were outraged to hear that funding was given to wacky pseudo-science projects, weren't you?
This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, by Gordon Moore: "If everything you try works, you're not trying hard enough."
Sean
I believe this concept (or one very similar) Arthur C Clarke aired in his book 2061.
Web Sig: Eddy Currents
.. for the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6? Or is that not risky enough?
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.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
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.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
Unfortunatly the brute force method to interstellar travel will never work. One sand grain sized particle hitting a craft going 1% of c will end the mission. Then there is the issue of having enough fuel and the multigenerational length of the mission.
My dad has worked with Brad Edwards on the Space Elevator extensively, and I can tell you from experience that it is not wacky science fiction. It is a six billion dollar investment that isn't likely to appear anytime soon. However, it is almost certain to happen within the next thirty to forty years. While it is nice that the government can handle that kind of long-range vision occasionally, if they are the only ones providing investment into technologies like this one then they will end up controlling those technologies. What would really be nice is if the private sector could see into the future too and fund some of this kind of stuff without NASA's help.
"as if nothing were solid...and that would be the end of the world, not fire and brimstone, but goo."--Rand
It's too bad that a defenseless program like this is just the sort that would be hacked apart if some hackney news agency decided to do an expose on the $4m it gets. I'm sure John Stossel could paint horns on it.
Even outlandish ideas deserve study. This isn't "duh" stuff like the speed at which ketchup comes out of the bottle, etc. I think it's important to keep an eye out on the horizon and if a couple bucks is enough motivation, then go for it!
~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
I'd like to see more research into replicator technology (maybe we will get there after enough nano-research?)
If we get replicators, we can solve a lot of problems at once:
- Food, nobody would have to grow hungry again
- Money, nobody would need it ever again
- Fuel, no more dependancies on oil
- Nuclear waste/pollution, easy to clean that up now
- Living forever, refreshing the building blocks of our bodies
- etc.
The only problem I can see here (and I'm sure there are more) is nano-warfare. As in "Let's make a nanobot that can kill all people with a certain DNA profile", that's the only thing I'm afraid of.
I think it will take a long time before we finally have that technology, but I'm afraid I won't live to see that (and I'm still hoping to have about 70 years ahead of me to live to the ripe old age of 95)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
The one thing that I like about the idea for shifting the hurricane is that when there wasn't a hurricane to be shifted, you could redirect all that energy onto a bank of photovoltaic cells.
:)
Of course...the one thing I don't like about the idea is that us humans don't have a whole lot of success in anticipating the consequences of fucking around with nature
..How about trying to get CowboyNeal a date?
~m
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
A modest proposal: Instead of just posting an article every time a Wired Article comes out, slashdot should just made a special section feeding everything from Wired.
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
At least they are not any of that 4 000 000$ year to web designers. That's allways a good sign.
The homepage looks absolutely horrible!!
Dyslexics have more fnu.
I believe this concept (or one very similar) Arthur C Clarke aired in his book 2061.
He was just re using the concept he presented for the first time in "The Fountains of Paradise" (1978).
Great book, BTW.
Reminds me of this novel where there's an organzation that won't finance something unless it's crazy and has no chance of succeeding. I believe its motto was Bread cast upon water multplies sevenfold. In the novel the organization finances a novel way of communicating between Earth and starships.
This guy is way out there
Here is my 'sci-fi' grant proposal. I hope you approve:
Power to the Peaceful
I thought that NASA had stopped funding their forward-thinking "breakthrough propulsion program." Perhaps not?
Actually, Mr. Fuller had domes. The balls referred to above have his name in honor of the domes.
You probably shouldn't click this.
I'd blame you for not reading the whole report, but then it is a bit lengthy. ^^; Point one is that I believe the initial design took alot larger margin then 10% in my recollection. And point two is, that they were always planning to drop it from orbit.
Incidentally an airplane collision wouldn't do all that much, the plane likely would get wrecked, and the cable severed, whereafter it likely will remain hovering at near the same altitude it got cut. Reconnecting it might be to difficult though, Or maybe not, who knows.
Quickshot
To clarify a little something for any non-physicists out there: Seat belts are designed to distribute force evenly across the strongest parts of a vehicle occupant's body (the hips and chest). We already have materials strong enough that 10 microns could restrain an accident victim, but a 10-micron seat belt would cut through your flesh, probably down to the bone in the case of an accident.
In other words, the world does not need a better 10 micron seat belt.
I, AlGore created the internet.
Many posts on this board accuse me of saying I only "invented the internet". This is patently false, I am greater than that, I said that "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" as the following interview with Mr. Blitzer will show.
BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.
Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?
GORE: Well, I will be offering - I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.
But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what I've seen during that experience is an emerging future that's very exciting, about which I'm very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead.
Go play basketball with your buddy.
I recently attended one of their conferences as a one of the student presenters. This is not a waste of money. Their grants come in two phases with the first one about $60,000 and the second phase much more. The amount they give is miniscule compared to potential rewards. As far as the space elevator, before I went to the conference I thought it was a joke as well, but it is a very viable concept. In response to the guy who made the comment about protecting it from planes, this will be constructed in the ocean and it would be very easy for a year round no fly zone. Also, if I remember correctly, the location was choosen because this area is storm free year round, but I am not sure on this point.
Nothing like waiting for a good meal to materialize in solar powered replicator.
Or, as I like to call them, "plants."
The Warbot 1Alpha needs serious debugging. The nanobots got too smart and did serious upgrading beyond my control.
:)
I need funds so I can perfect the techniquie and build a billion of them to rule the world, er I mean explore space, yeah that's the ticket!
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Does NASA also have a group for the
"Most Advanced NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts" as well?
There's a whole bunch more on NASA's way-out research over here.
*Someone hasn't clearly played Civilization.. :(*
Store with salt
Guardians of Order has secured the rights to publish all of Phage Press's product line. Mark McKinnon, the founder of GoO, was a regular on the Amber mailing list about the same time as I was many years ago. With Tekumel, Nobilis, and Amber, GoO is basically becoming a clearing-house for underappreciated yet brilliant games.
Oh, and Amber player automatically go on my Friends list.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").