Imagine a future in space where rocket-jet engines accelerate travel to other worlds, pipelines on the moon transport oxygen between settlements, and Martian bricks grow by themselves before being assembled into homes. Researchers will explore these and other ideas using the NASA grant.
NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program promotes innovation by funding early-stage research to evaluate technologies that could support future missions. The latest round of awards will award $175,000 in grants to 14 visionaries from nine states. Ten of the selected researchers were awarded NIAC for the first time.
“NASA dares to make the impossible possible. This is only possible because of the innovators, thinkers and doers who help us envision and prepare for the future of space exploration,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The NIAC program helps provide these forward-thinking scientists and engineers with the tools and support they need to develop the technologies that will enable future NASA missions.”
Credit: NASA
New phase one projects include innovative sensors and instruments, manufacturing technologies, power systems, and more.
The concept, developed by Quinn Morley of Planet Enterprises in Gig Harbor, Washington, could probe the chemistry of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Flight on Titan would be relatively easy due to its low gravity and thick atmosphere. Morley envisioned a flying, well-equipped boat that could seamlessly transition between hovering in Titan’s atmosphere and navigating its lakes, much like a seaplane on Earth.
Mary Knapp of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge proposed a new kind of space observatory consisting of thousands of identical small satellites. Precisely located in deep space, they could work together to detect low-frequency radio emissions from the earliest ages of the universe and measure the magnetic fields of terrestrial exoplanets, helping to identify planets outside the solar system that are rocky like Earth and Mars.
Since 2011, NIAC has been hatching similar ideas that sound like science fiction, but if successful, could become possible. The program is part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) and explores technically viable early-stage aerospace concepts. NIAC researchers, called Fellows, form an advanced collaborative research community. Under NIAC’s awards, fellows explore the physics of their concepts, map out the required technology development, identify potential constraints, and look for transition opportunities to make those concepts a reality.
“These early NIAC studies are helping NASA determine whether these futuristic ideas can set the stage for future space exploration capabilities and create exciting new missions,” said Michael Lapointe, NIAC program manager at NASA Headquarters.
All NIAC studies are in the very early stages of conceptual development and are not considered official NASA missions.
Researchers selected for NIAC Phase I grants in 2023, their institutions and their proposal titles:
- Edward Balaban, NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley: The liquid telescope: building the next generation of large space observatories
- Ihor Bargatin, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia: A photophoretic engine that enables exploration mesosphere
- Teresa Begno, NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland: Access to the icy world oceans using Fast Fission fusion
- Zachary Cordero, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Forming folds of large space structures controlled by an electrostatic drive
- Peter Carreri, Lunar Resources, Inc. in Houston: oxygen lead on south pole of the moon
- Artur Davoyan, University of California, Los Angeles: A jet engine for a breakthrough in space exploration
- Ryan Gosse, University of Florida, Gainesville: A new class of wave-cycle bimodal nuclear thermal/electric engine for rapid transit to Mars
- Congruy Jean, University of Nebraska, Lincoln: self-growing building blocks with support for biomineralization for arranging habitats on Mars
- Mary Knapp, MIT: A large observatory for long waves
- Quinn Morley, Planet Enterprises in Gig Harbor, Washington: TitanAir: Advanced Liquid Fluid Collection for Advanced Science
- Christopher Morrison, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation – Space, Seattle: EmberCore Flashlight: Long-range lunar performance with an intense passive X-ray and gamma-ray source
- Heidi Newberg, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York: Diffraction Interferocoronagraph Exoplanet Discriminator: Detection and Characterization of All Earth-like Exoplanets Orbiting Sun-like Stars Within 10 Parsecs
- Stephen Polley, Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York: radioisotope thermoradiative electric generator of the cell
- Ryan Weed, Seattle Positron Dynamics: airgel fission rocket engine
NIAC is funded by STMD, which is responsible for developing new end-to-end technologies and capabilities needed by the agency to achieve current and future missions.
