2011 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) awards -

[DocM]

These are the NASA advanced projects lab awards for 2011.

They run from using 3D printers to produce spacecraft parts and using metallic hydrogen as rocket fuel to electronic radiation shields and fusion based spacecraft engines.

Yes, they're serious.

2011 NIAC Phase I Selections (NIAC = NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts)

Variable Vector Countermeasure Suit (V2Suit) for Space Habitation and Exploration (The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory)

Enabling All-Access Mobility for Planetary Exploration Vehicles via Transformative Reconfiguration (North Carolina State University)

The Potential for Ambient Plasma Wave Propulsion (Ohio Aerospace Institute)

Space Debris Elimination (SpaDE) (Raytheon BBN Technologies)

Regolith Derived Heat Shield for a Planetary Body Entry and Descent System with In-Situ Fabrication (NASA Kennedy Space Center)

Atmospheric Breathing Electric Thruster for Planetary Exploration (Busek Co. Inc.)

Economical Radioisotope Power (Universities Space Research Association)

Contour Crafting Simulation Plan for Lunar Settlement Infrastructure Build-Up (University of Southern California)

Entanglement-assisted Communication System for NASA's Deep-Space Missions: Feasibility Test and Conceptual Design (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

SPS-ALPHA: The First Practical Solar Power Satellite via Arbitrarily Large PHased Array (Artemis Innovation Management Solutions)

High-temperature superconductors as electromagnetic deployment and support structures in spacecraft (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Non-Radioisotope Power Systems For Sunless Solar System Exploration Missions (Pennsylvania State University)

Spacecraft/Rover Hybrids for the Exploration of Small Solar System Bodies (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Ultra-Light ?Photonic Muscle? Space Structures (University of Hawaii)

Low Power Microrobotics Utilizing Biologically Inspired Energy Generation (Naval Research Laboratory)

Printable Spacecraft (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

In-Space Propulsion Engine Architecture based on Sublimation of Planetary Resources: from exploration robots to NEO mitigation (NASA Kennedy Space Center)

Metallic Hydrogen: A Game Changing Rocket Propellant (Harvard University)

Nuclear Propulsion through Direct Conversion of Fusion Energy (MSNW LLC)

Interplanetary CubeSats: Opening the Solar System to a Broad Community at Lower Cost (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Ghost Imaging of Space Objects (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Laser-Based Optical Trap for Remote Sampling of Interplanetary and Atmospheric Particulate Matter (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

Steering of Solar Sails Using Optical Lift Force (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Aneutronic Fusion Spacecraft Architecture (University of Houston at Clear Lake)

Radiation Shielding Materials Containing Hydrogen, Boron, and Nitrogen: Systematic Computational and Experimental Study (NASA Langley Research Center)

Electrostatic Active Space Radiation Shielding for Deep Space Missions (NASA Langley Research Center)

Proposal for a Concept Assessment of a Fission Fragment Rocket Engine (FFRE) Propelled Spacecraft (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center)

Radiation Protection and Architecture Utilizing High Temperature Superconducting Magnets (NASA Johnson Space Center)

Technologies Enabling Exploration of Skylights, Lava Tubes and Caves (Astrobotic Technology Inc.)

Optimal Dispersion of Near-Earth Objects (Iowa State University)