Report Urges NASA to Resurrect Advanced Concepts Institute

by Tariq Malik, Managing Editor

Date: 07 August 2009 Time: 03:10 PM ET

A concept of a nuclear reactor buried below the lunar surface to make use of lunar soil as additional radiation shielding. The engines that convert heat energy to electricity are in the tower above the reactor, and radiators extend out from the tower to radiate into space any leftover heat energy. The power system would transmit 40 kilowatts of electric power, enough for about eight houses on Earth, to the lunar outpost.
CREDIT: NASA

NASA should resurrect a mothballed institute specifically geared to encourage visionary concepts for future space exploration, according to a new report from the National Research Council (NRC).

The report, released Friday, recommended that the space agency revive the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), which was shuttered in 2007, or replace it with a similar innovation-focused entity in order to ?seek out far-reaching, advanced concepts with the potential of significant benefit? to NASA?s charter and future missions.

?Today, NASA?s investment in advanced concepts and long-term technological solutions to its strategic goals is minimal,? the new report states. It found the NIAC program extremely successful in encouraging innovative research.

The 102-page report comes on the heels of President Barack Obama?s Aug. 1 speech calling on America to ?recapture the spirit of innovation? during his weekly radio address. In July, an older NRC report also urged NASA to renew efforts in advanced technology development by establishing an internal division modeled on the Pentagon?s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

?NASA has received the report from the NRC and is in the process of assessing its contents,? NASA spokesperson J.D. Herrington told SPACE.com in an e-mail. ?No decisions have been made based on its recommendations.?

Promoting advanced concepts

Between 1998 and 2007, NIAC served as a virtual institute to investigate advanced concepts by soliciting study proposals via the Internet and awarding grants for innovative research that could impact NASA?s missions over the next 10 to 40 years. NASA shut it down to free up funding for its Vision for Space Exploration, which is aimed at retiring the space shuttle fleet in 2010, fielding its capsule-based replacement Orion in 2015 and returning astronauts to the moon by 2020.

NIAC was established by the Columbia, Md.-based Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and received about $4 million a year in funding, more than 75 percent of which went directly to grant awards, according to the report, which is titled ?Fostering Visions for the Future: A Review of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts.? Grants typically ranged between $50,000 and $400,000, according to past reports.

Some research projects were popular in the public and media, broadening NASA and NIAC?s exposure to the American people, the report stated.

?The majority of the NIAC-supported efforts were highly innovative,? the report states. ?Many pushed the limits of applied physics. Overall, the efforts supported produced results commensurate with the risks involved.?

Past NIAC studies have included research into skin-tight spacesuits and a fleet of robots that could fly to an asteroid to deflect it from colliding with Earth. In mid-2006, grants were awarded to study the feasibility of launching a giant shield into space to counteract global warming and an evaluation of self-deployed habitats for space and planetary exploration.

Reviving innovation

In its original incarnation, NIAC?s focus on long-term innovations over the next four decades may have hindered its ability to tie into NASA?s shorter-term goals. The new report recommends that any new form of NIAC use a study?s potential to yield a direct, major contribution to a future NASA mission as a key selection benchmark.

The report also urges NASA to broaden the field for NIAC-like grant applicants to allow the space agency?s own scientists and personnel to participate, as well as to identify which agency centers could serve as so-called technology champions to support promising studies.

According to the report, a new NIAC entity should report directly to the office of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and be managed separately from other agency mission divisions. Initial grants for the new program could fund studies with up to $100,000 for a year in a Phase 1 approach, while a Phase 2 level could set aside up to $500,000 over two years for innovative research.

The NRC report stemmed from a half-year study by 12 experts in advanced space and aeronautical concepts. Robert Braun, director of the Space Systems Laboratory at Georgia Tech, and Diane Wiley, a technical fellow at Boeing?s Phantom Works, led the committee, which was concerned by NASA?s lack of a specific avenue to pursue advanced concept research.

?The termination of NIAC reflects a larger issue within NASA related to the demise of advanced concepts and technology development programs throughout the agency,? the report states. ?To effectively infuse advanced concepts into its future systems, NASA needs to become an organization that values and nurtures the creation and maturation of advanced aeronautics and space concepts.?

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