(09-August-2011) Visionary Ideas Could Transform Future NASA Missions

NASA hopes to eventually explore new frontiers with some of the 30 proposals it is funding over the next year.
USA
August 09, 2011
Visionary Ideas Could Transform Future NASA
Missions
Space agency awards grants to explore next generation of US space program
Rosanne Skirble | Washington, D.C.
NASA, the U.S. space agency, has awarded $3 million in grants for 30 proposals which
explore new ideas for America’s next generation space program.
The proposals reflect wide-ranging visions of new spacecraft designs, new propulsion systems and
an expanded human presence in space. They each receive a first-year development grant of
$100,000 to prove their worth.
NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program (NIAC) received hundreds of proposals
representing almost every aspect of the agency's mission.
“Just looking down the list, there are some that are related to humans trying to operate in space,
some that are related to spacecraft trying to operate safely or protecting people from radiation,"
program executive Jay Falker says, "some that are improved propulsion concepts, some that are
improved structures and some that would maybe enable us to do the kinds of missions we’ve done
before, a space station or a space telescope, but much, much more efficiently.”
The selected proposals came from academia, industry and from within NASA itself.(more)http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Visionary-Ideas-Could-Transform-Future-NASA-Missions-127319373.html