NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program picks 30 projects

[bananas]

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/08/7306644-out-of-this-world-ideas-funded

Out-of-this-world ideas funded
By Alan Boyle

NASA is awarding $100,000 one-year grants to 30 teams for out-of-this-world ideas ranging from new kinds of spacesuits to quantum communication and space solar power.

The awards were announced today under the auspices of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC. The space agency said the concepts were chosen on the basis of their potential for enhancing future space missions. The grants will go toward further study, to determine whether the ideas could help NASA meet future mission requirements.

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NIAC follows up on an earlier program with the same acronym, known as the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. Between 1998 and 2007, that program pioneered such concepts as space solar power and the space elevator, but it was retooled in response to recommendations from the National Research Council. Unlike the previous NIAC, the new NIAC is open to NASA centers as well as outside academic and industry teams.

"I'm just so thrilled that NIAC is back," Parrish said.

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