Hibernation capsules, magnetic force fields, fusion drives — these and other crazy space technologies have been sci-fi movie tropes for years.
But NASA is taking them seriously by throwing gobs of money at researchers to bring them into the real world.
It's all part of the space agency's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which funds wild research projects by heavy hitters in the space industry. Phase I awards give engineers and scientists up to $100,000 of funding for nine months, while projects that pass on to phase II get up to $500,000 over two years.
"The purpose of NIAC is early studies of visionary concepts," Jay Falker, Program Executive of NIAC said in a video explaining the program. "They have to be innovative, yet credible, and so we are really looking for revolutionary ideas."
We picked 14 of the wildest and most visionary NIAC concepts from both phase I and phase II of the program.
Hibernation pods
Spaceworks Engineering is researching pods that would induce sleep states for crews headed to Mars and farther, like the asteroid belt, Jupiter and Saturn. That six-month road trip to the red planet wouldn't be as boring if you could snooze the whole time.
Source: NASA
Laser-firing probes
Researchers at CalTech think landing and drilling into asteroids, comets, and other remote objects in space is kind of a hassle. So they want to shoot them with lasers, then study what gases and other materials fly off with spectrometers.
Source: NASA
Magnetic brakes
A company called MSNW is designing a force field generator that'd create a shell of magnetized plasma. The goal: slow down a spacecraft so it can safely land on a planet. This type of "magnetoshell" braking would pulse plasma made of argon gas, and it could be more reliable, cooler, and not as risky as aerobraking. Aerobraking uses atmospheric gas to slow down a spacecraft, but the trick can heat up robots to dangerous temperatures.
Source: NASA
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