NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts has now announced that its operations will cease on August 31st of this year. Director Robert Cassanova takes justifiable pride in the Institute’s accomplishments, and I want to quote from the letter he and associate director Diana Jennings posted on the NIAC site the other day:
Since its beginning in February 1998, NIAC has encouraged an atmosphere of creative examination of seemingly impossible aerospace missions and of audacious, but credible, visions to extend the limits of technical achievement. Visionary thinking is an essential ingredient for maintaining global leadership in the sciences, technology innovation and expansion of knowledge. NIAC has sought creative researchers who have the ability to transcend current perceptions of scientific knowledge and, with imagination and vision, to leap beyond incremental development towards the possibilities of dramatic breakthroughs in performance of aerospace systems.
A key fact that many people didn’t realize about NIAC was that NASA’s own researchers were not eligible to receive funding. The idea, as Cassanova told me in a 2003 interview, was to encourage ideas to flow from outside the agency, without the baggage of needing working relationships within NASA. Several people with NIAC studies — Geoffrey Landis comes immediately to mind — did go on to work for the agency, but only after they had completed their NIAC work. Landis’ study Advanced Solar and Laser Pushed Lightsail Concepts from 1999 remains of great interest in the interstellar community.
The NIAC site is to be archived, along with the library of all funded studies, and should continue to be available after August through the Universities Space Reseach Association. In a report on NIAC’s return on investment, Cassanova runs through the Institute’s history: 126 Phase I studies and 42 of the longer Phase II efforts since 1998. NIAC Fellows were recently asked to provide information about additional funding they received to continue their initial work. Twelve of these efforts, funded by NIAC at $5.9 million, have gone on to generate $21.2 million in additional support, not only through NASA but also through other agencies and the private sector.
Three of the twelve should have particular resonance to Centauri Dreams readers, as we’ve discussed them all in these pages, particularly the first two. Let me cite the report’s summaries:
- Mini-magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion (M2P2), (Robert Winglee and John Slough, PIs) The M2P2 was included in the NASA Decadal Plan and funded by MSFC to continue experiments confirming computer models. A plasma sail review panel identified a number of technical issues needing further research before feasibility could be assessed. Subsequent research results have addressed most of these issues. Additional support: 700,000 dollars to continue development of Helicon component.
- The New Worlds Observer (Web Cash, PI). This concept for planet finding was only months into its Phase II funding when it burst onto the global scene by gracing the cover of Nature. This concept has benefited from continuing support from NASA and more notably, at least two million dollars in support for additional development from Northrup Grumman and its partners. Cash, the PI, says this concept would never have seen the light of day without NIAC backing. Additional support: at least two million dollars. NASA GSFC has also contributed substantial in-kind support but we do not have numerical data. Potential impact: the same, or better, science return than the Terrestrial Planet Finder, at a savings of five billion dollars.
- Lorentz-Actuated Orbits: Electrodynamic Propulsion without a Tether (Mason Peck, PI). This revolutionary concept relies on one of the last areas of classical physics that could be applied to propellantless propulsion. Additional funding: 550,000 dollars from DARPA and NRO. Potential impact: significant cost-savings in propulsion.
We should also note that Bradley Edwards’ work on space elevator concepts that would revolutionize access to low Earth orbit gained an additional $8.5 million following its NIAC report. These and numerous other visionary studies are available at the NIAC site. The question now turns to how and when attempts to fund research into such concepts can emerge from alternate sources. The role of the private sector will doubtless be crucial, and on that score I’m hoping we’ll have much to talk about in coming months.
This is just terrible news that the NIAC is closing.
Has anyone contacted the Congressional authorizing or appropriating committee or subcommittee-thye have been reversing a lot of the administrations decisons
Unfortunately the NIAC closure seems to be a byproduct of a popular tendency amongst press and and pundits to portray NASA as “big, dumb and slow”. We’re constantly being told that private enterprise is on the threshold of taking the lead in the high frontier, and yet what we have to date amounts to a single suborbital flight and a couple of scale-down prototype inflatable habitats. Those are big achievements, and I don’t want to cast aspersions on them, but saying that NASA is no longer required for the high frontier depends on what you define as “high”, I suppose.
marc and chris – this is indeed very unfortunate news which i am afraid betrays short sightedness! not at all a good thing! regards your friend george
Unfortunately the NIAC closure seems to be a byproduct of a popular tendency amongst press and and pundits to portray NASA as “big, dumb and slow”.
So NASA responds by closing the evidence that it is not “big, dumb and slow”?
Unfortunately the NIAC closure seems to be a byproduct of a popular tendency amongst press and and pundits to portray NASA as “big, dumb and slow”. We’re constantly being told that private enterprise is on the threshold of taking the lead in the high frontier, and yet what we have to date amounts to a single suborbital flight and a couple of scale-down prototype inflatable habitats.
I agree.
I feel very sorry for NASA predicament. On one hand, they are trying to relive glory days by getting us back to to the moon, but on the other hand, they are short changed by our government who then whines about program cuts later on.
People should not blame NASA for all of this…we are really to blame.
After all, NASA was never given the budget to do both a lunar landing and the science programs (and the American public as a whole never pressed Congress to give NASA the money). NASA had to chose of either continuing to fund the science programs to help us gaze at the stars, or actually attempt to visit them.
Although the decision means that we may be visiting the moon slightly crippled, at least we are expanding our species upon other worlds.
Chris Wren:
The NIAC closure is most likely a short-sighted internal budget decision. One of many made over the last couple of years What, if any, evidence do you have for your assertion that it was driven by popular portrayals in the press?
John, I think that the popular portrayal of Nasa as Big Dumb and Slow ( See Greg Easterbrook’s article in Wired, as but one recent example) has a “trickle up” effect which reaches policy-makers in Washington. The premature perception that private enterprise is poised to take the reigns from a bloated, obsolete government agency DOES have real tangible effects, which translate into high level budjet cuts, which NASA has to translate into cutting of programs like NIAC.
Another project funded initially by NIAC:
MIT team designs sleek, skintight spacesuit
For Immediate Release
MONDAY, JULY 16, 2007
Contact:
Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
Phone: 1-617-258-5402
Email: thomson@mit.edu
PHOTOS AVAILABLE
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–In the 40 years that humans have been traveling
into space, the suits they wear have changed very little. The bulky,
gas-pressurized outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but
their significant mass and the pressure itself severely limit
mobility.
Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and
engineering systems at MIT, wants to change that.
Newman is working on a sleek, advanced suit designed to allow
superior mobility when humans eventually reach Mars or return to the
moon. Her spandex and nylon BioSuit is not your grandfather’s
spacesuit-think more Spiderman, less John Glenn.
Traditional bulky spacesuits “do not afford the mobility and
locomotion capability that astronauts need for partial gravity
exploration missions. We really must design for greater mobility and
enhanced human and robotic capability,” Newman says.
Newman, her colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a local design
firm, Trotti and Associates, have been working on the project for
about seven years. Their prototypes are not yet ready for space
travel, but demonstrate what they’re trying to achieve-a lightweight,
skintight suit that will allow astronauts to become truly mobile
lunar and Mars explorers.
Newman anticipates that the BioSuit could be ready by the time humans
are ready to launch an expedition to Mars, possibly in about 10
years. Current spacesuits could not handle the challenges of such an
exploratory mission, Newman says.
A NEW APPROACH
Newman’s prototype suit is a revolutionary departure from the
traditional model. Instead of using gas pressurization, which exerts
a force on the astronaut’s body to protect it from the vacuum of
space, the suit relies on mechanical counter-pressure, which involves
wrapping tight layers of material around the body. The trick is to
make a suit that is skintight but stretches with the body, allowing
freedom of movement.
Over the past 40 years, spacesuits have gotten progressively heavier,
and they now weigh in at about 300 pounds. That bulk — much of which
is due to multiple layers and the life support system coupled with
the gas-pressurization — severely constrains astronauts’ movements.
About 70 to 80 percent of the energy they exert while wearing the
suit goes towards simply working against the suit to bend it.
“You can’t do much bending of the arms or legs in that type of suit,”
Newman says.
When an astronaut is in a micro-gravity environment (for example,
doing a spacewalk outside the International Space Station), working
in such a massive suit is manageable, but, as Newman says, “It’s a
whole different ballgame when we go to the moon or Mars, and we have
to go back to walking and running, or loping.”
Another advantage to her BioSuit is safety: if a traditional
spacesuit is punctured by a tiny meteorite or other object, the
astronaut must return to the space station or home base immediately,
before life-threatening decompression occurs. With the BioSuit, a
small, isolated puncture can be wrapped much like a bandage, and the
rest of the suit will be unaffected.
Newman says the finished BioSuit may be a hybrid that incorporates
some elements of the traditional suits, including a gas-pressured
torso section and helmet. An oxygen tank can be attached to the back.
The MIT researchers are focusing on the legs and arms, which are
challenging parts to design. In the Man-Vehicle Lab at MIT, students
test various wrapping techniques, based on 3D models they’ve created
of the human in motion and how the skin stretches during locomotion,
bending, climbing or driving a rover.
Key to their design is the pattern of lines on the suit, which
correspond to lines of non-extension (lines on the skin that don’t
extend when you move your leg). Those lines provide a stiff
“skeleton” of structural support, while providing maximal mobility.
To be worn in space, the BioSuit must deliver close to one-third the
pressure exerted by Earth’s atmosphere, or about 30 kPa
(kilopascals). The current prototype suit exerts about 20 KPa
consistently, and the researchers have gotten new models up to 25 to
30 KPa.
STAYING IN SHAPE
The suits could also help astronauts stay fit during the six-month
journey to Mars. Studies have shown that astronauts lose up to 40
percent of their muscle strength in space, but the new outfits could
be designed to offer varying resistance levels, allowing the
astronauts to exercise against the suits during a long flight to Mars.
Although getting the suits into space is the ultimate goal, Newman is
also focusing on Earth-bound applications in the short term, such as
athletic training or helping people walk.
The new BioSuit builds on ideas developed in the 1960s and 1970s by
Paul Webb, who first came up with the concept for a “space activity
suit,” and Saul Iberall, who postulated the lines of non-extension.
However, neither the technology nor the materials were available then.
“Dr. Webb had a great idea, before its time. We’re building on that
work to try to make it feasible,” says Newman.
The project was initially funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts.
–MIT–
Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
NASA Watch asks if NIAC should be revived:
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2009/06/should_niac_be.html
The responses have been overwhelingly in the positive.
With a budget of just $4 million annually, that is chicken feed for most
government agencies. And what could come from this think thank is
priceless.
From NASA Watch for August 6, 2009:
From the NRC:
“A new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council, FOSTERING VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE: A REVIEW OF THE NASA INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED CONCEPTS, evaluates the effectiveness of this NASA program, which was formed to be an independent source of revolutionary aeronautical and space concepts that could dramatically impact how NASA develops and conducts its missions but lost its funding in 2007.
The report examines how well the program fulfilled this mission, and recommends whether a successor to the program should be federally funded.”
Keith Cowing’s note: The report will be issued tomorrow (August 7, 2009).
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2009/08/nrc_weighs_in_o.html
Fostering Visions for the Future:
A Review of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12702
NRC: Fostering Visions for the Future: A Review of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=32054
“NIAC was featured in more than 40 general-interest publications, attracting
mainstream media coverage for the agency and receiving more than 226,000
Google hits to its website.
Originally conceived as reporting to the agency’s chief technologist so that
infusion across all NASA enterprises could be assured, NIAC operated in an
environment of frequent NASA organizational changes.
In 2004, NASA management of NIAC was transferred to the Exploration Systems
Mission Directorate, where it was not well aligned with its sponsor’s near-term
mission objectives. NIAC was terminated in 2007.”