An elevator to space? NASA urged to explore advanced technology

— -- Space elevators? Alienworlds? Deep-space plasma rockets?

No, it's not science-fiction — it's history —NASA's late, lamented Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC). Exotic telescopes, tethered slingshots to shuttle cargo from the moon to Mars and skin-tight space suits were just some of the technologies the institute ponied up seed money to explore.

The institute succumbed to new priorities when President Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration involving manned flights to the moon. Essentially, NASA chief Mike Griffin decided two years ago that his agency's mission was going for the moon today, rather than the stars tomorrow, ending its $4 million yearly funding of the institute. "NASA, faced with the constraints of achieving the Vision for Space Exploration, has made the difficult decision to terminate NIAC," the space agency announced in 2007.

But a National Research Council (NRC) report out Friday calls for the return of the institute, "formed for the explicit purpose of being an independent source of revolutionary aeronautical and space concepts," according to its charter.

"The committee recommends that NASA should re-establish a NIAC-like entity," says the Fostering Visions for the Future: A Review of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts report headed by Robert Braun of Georgia Tech.

For the $36.2 million the space agency (annual budget, $17 billion) invested in the institute's 168 grants over nine years:

•Grant projects received at least $23.8 million from outside organizations, a sign they were worthy enough to attract partners. Some projects "have become classified and others are receiving (survival) funds from aerospace sources," so the total may be higher.

•About 28% of 42 "Phase II" grant projects lived on after NIAC funding ended, which the report argues is a good success rate for high-risk technology projects.

•Three grant projects were deemed significant enough to be incorporated into NASA's long-term goals and two are part of contemplated NASA missions, another sign of success.

"The majority of the NIAC-supported efforts were highly innovative. Many pushed the limits of applied physics. Overall, the efforts supported produced results commensurate with the risks involved," the report panel concludes. The report follows a similar July call by the NASA Advisory Council, headed by U.S. Air Force Gen. Lester Lyles (ret.), for the space agency to establish an organization like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an innovation-sponsoring hothouse at the Defense Department. (DARPA clones are very much in style these days, with a similar effort envisioned for the Energy Department.)

"The report reflects a recognition by many that if NASA is going to be a seedbed of innovation, some organization has to be at the cutting edge there, and allowed to fail, to try way-out things," says long-time space analyst John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Among the missions spawned by NIAC is the "New Worlds Observer," a telescope design aimed at determining whether Earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars have habitable atmospheres. Just this week, NASA's Kepler mission team confirmed their space telescope works and over the next four years should detect dozens to hundreds of Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby stars, according to planetary scientist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Plotting NASA's future is a cottage industry these days, with a high-profile panel led by defense industry bigwig Norm Augustine tackling the topic this fall (Augustine, the former head of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, headed a similar panel nearly two decades ago for the first Bush administration.) Whether that panel's recommendations, or the NRC report, will be taken seriously remains to be seen, Logsdon says."The fundamental issue is a judgment on the part of the nation's leadership on how important space is to the country."

In 2004, former President George W. Bush proposed for NASA to return to the moon, but didn't push for funding to achieve the goal, Logsdon adds. Similarly, "NASA offers a good test for President Obama on whether he will match the rhetoric on making the space agency once again a source of pride in innovation, even amid the very difficult economic situation he finds the country facing."

Stay tuned folks, the future is coming one way or the other. We'll see what part NASA plays.