Sure, the agency is working on finding alien Earths, building moon bases, and exploring the solar system. But these days, NASA can be surprisingly straight-laced. So when the space crowd wantsreally wild ideas -- stuff like shape-shifting space suits, antimatter-powered probes, weather control, and elevators into orbit -- it turns to a tiny, six-person, $3 million-per-year center called the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts.
Or, at least, that's what the space agency *used *to do. We're hearing word that NASA is planning to kill off its way-out research arm. "This is just plain stupid," say the long-time space observers at NASA Watch. For sure. $3 million is a piddling amount of money for $16 billion organization. And the payoffs from any one of these far-thinking concepts could be monumental: new ways to get into orbit, to survive in space, to travel to other planets.
Sure, the Institute's ideas can sound goofy, or far-fetched. Just this month, a meeting of "NIAC" fellows examined bio-electric space exploration, "In-Orbit Assembly of Modular Space Systems with Non-Contacting, Flux- Pinned Interfaces," and a single fluid for astronaut power, propulsion, and life support. But isn't NASA, at the bottom of it all, a place to dream?
UPDATE: New Scientist confirms it. And Sharon, up above, tells me to dry my cryin', dreamin' eyes.
