Force fields, space lasers, sleep pods, and 12 other wild technologies NASA is funding right now

Dunn graphic2 Made In Space, Inc.

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, Inc.

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

Mark Pryor (Vorticity, Inc.) , Gary B. Hughes (Cal Poly SLO)

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

D. Kirtley

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


Artificial-gravity ships

R. Skelton

The human body does not do well in space, and that's primarily because of harmful radiation and a lack of gravitational pull. The Growth-Adapted Tensegrity Structures hopes to solve those two problems, plus make room for growing ambitions in space. The habitats would make astronauts weigh as much as they do on Earth, shield them from incessant deep-space radiation, and make plenty of room for expanding a space base.

Source: NASA


Cheap gliders to replace satellites

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Satellites are expensive to launch and almost impossible to repair. The Dual-Aircraft Platform is a concept for a high-flying glider that might make surveillance of Earth from above vastly cheaper. Each glider would be held together by a high-strength cable and harness both solar and wind energy (though they could stay aloft on wind alone).

Source: NASA


Asteroids turned into ships

Made In Space, Inc.

Project RAMA (Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata) seeks to transform asteroids into "autonomous mechanical spacecraft," which could bring hard-to-reach asteroids closer to Earth for human exploration.

Source: NASA


Mining schemes for Mars


The Mars Molniya Orbit Atmospheric Resource Mining project wants to crack the very tricky problem of easily landing very large spacecraft on the red planet. This could help boot up resource extraction there, and — back on Earth — reduce the amount of stuff that missions would need to haul more than 100 million miles.

Source: NASA


Wads of sticks that safely land spacecraft

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

The Tension Adjustable Novel Deployable Entry Mechanism, or TANDEM, is the "drop an egg from a balcony" project on a cosmic scale. The spacecraft would be made of struts held together by adjustable, high-tension cables that would provide a shock-absorbing structure to carry payloads to risky landing sites — then tumble over tough obstacles on the surface.

Source: NASA


Nano probes for icy moons

Exoterra Resource, LLC

Getting a big robot to an icy moon with a subsurface ocean would be tricky — and expensive. Estimates start at $1 billion and go up to $5 billion, and that's before inevitable cost overruns. The Nano Icy Moons Propellant Harvester project wants to shrink missions to a tiny scale, reducing their weight an expense, while also allowing a sample of potentially microbe-laced ice to be sent back to Earth.

Source: NASA


Fusion engines

Princeton Satellite Systems, Inc.

The Fusion-Enabled Pluto Orbiter and Lander will rely on a direct fusion drive to carry a 1,000 kg (2.2 ton) load to Pluto in four to six years, and provide power for the lander from orbit. The sticking point with this one is that it'd require a lot of helium-3: an isotope that is exceedingly rare on Earth, but may be bountiful on the moon.

Source: NASA


Two-dimensional garbage sweepers

The Aerospace Corporation

The Brane Craft is a spaceship that's so thin, it's effectively two-dimensional. The fuel is stored in an ultra-thin gap between two sheets of tough Kapton film. All-in, a 1-square-meter Brane Craft would weigh about 35 grams, or about the size of a snack bag of chips. It's purpose? Sweep away dangerous debris in orbit above Earth.

Source: NASA


Photograph distant planets with echoes

Nanohmics, Inc.

The Stellar Echo Imaging of Exoplanets concept would use light "vibrations," which stars can emit, and look at the "echoes" that bounce off exoplanets. This would help us detect new worlds beyond our solar system, and the data might even be precise enough to make out alien continents.

Source: NASA


Submarines for alien oceans


Europa is one of the best places to look for alien life, since it harbors an Earth-like ocean. Problem is, it's capped under miles of ice — so NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech is looking at clever ways to get inside Europa and Enceladus (another ice moon) with the Cryovolcano Explorer. The probe would attempt to enter a cryovolcano, which spews water instead of molten rock, and could shorten the trip to any hidden ocean.

Source: NASA


Self-repairing electronics

NASA Ames Research Center

Deep space is full of radiation that can damage electronics. So a project at NASA Ames Research Center seeks to revitalize electronic components during long journeys with "synthetically enhanced microbes."

Source: NASA


Electromagnetic dust gliders

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory E-glider will fly over airless bodies — like asteroids and Earth's moon — with charged, wing-like appendages. The spacecraft would generate lift by manipulating nearby clouds of surface dust.

Source: NASA

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