Hello, friends! Welcome to Our Place in Space: A to Z! For this year’s A to Z Challenge, I’ll be taking you on a partly imaginative and highly optimistic tour of humanity’s future in outer space. If you don’t know what the A to Z Challenge is, click here to learn more. In today’s post, N is for…
NIAC
So far this month, we’ve talked about some pretty wild ideas for future missions in space. We’ve talked about building an elevator to space. We’ve talked about putting a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon. We’ve talked about sending astronauts to Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter, and exploring the hydrocarbon lakes on Titan (a moon of Saturn) using a robotic submarine. As crazy as these ideas may seem, they’ve all received some amount of funding from NASA through a program called NIAC.
NIAC stands for NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (yes, it’s an acronym that contains another acronym inside it). NIAC is basically a program that awards grant money to researchers who are testing the limits of what we can do in space using current technology or who are developing new technologies that might one day revolutionize space exploration. If you ever hear on the news that NASA is funding some project that sounds a little too Sci-Fi to be true, it probably just means that NASA gave somebody some NIAC funding for their research.
I once heard NIAC described as a high-risk/high-reward program. Many NIAC projects probably won’t work out. Some of these things really are too Sci-Fi to be true. But what if a few NIAC projects do work? What if some crazy idea that sounds like pure science fiction actually works!?! Even if only a few NIAC funded projects do come to fruition, they could change everything for NASA. More than that, they could change everything for human civilization.
I’m no expert on finances. I’m certainly no expert on how the U.S. federal budget works. I do know that space exploration is expensive. Very expensive.
I also know that NASA does what it does within a very strict and rather inflexible budget. I’m actually really impressed that NASA manages to do so much cool science stuff on such a tight budget. This may seem weird, but I often ask myself “What would NASA do?” when I have to make difficult spending decisions.
Most NIAC projects are definitely not ready to fly and probably won’t be ready to fly for quite a few years to come. But it makes sense to start planning for the future now. It makes sense to do some of the research now that could help make a more Sci-Fi future become a reality. That’s really what NIAC is all about.
Want to Learn More?
Wikipedia has a pretty thorough list of all the research projects that have received NIAC funding over the years, up to 2020.
Additionally, here’s a listing of NIAC funded projects from 2021, and here’s the listing for 2022.
Planet Pailly 
Eager to know what those Sci-Fi kind of projects are for which NASA funds! Never knew about NIAC
Informative post👍🏻
Dropping by from a to z http://afshan-shaik.blogspot.com/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not a lot of people seem to know about NIAC. It doesn’t get much publicity, but reading about these NIAC-funding projects can give us a sense of what the future might really be like.
LikeLike
The NIAC philosophy reminds me of Jeff Bezos. Bezos was stone cold honest with his investors throughout the early years of Amazon. He was probably going to fail, and they were probably going to lose their investment. But in the very unlikely case that he succeeded, the returns would be immense.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have a soft spot in my heart for cutting-edge research and NIAC seems to fit that bill. I learned lots from this post, and your comment about asking “what would NASA do” makes me smile.
LikeLiked by 1 person
NASA seems to be able to do a lot within the limits of the budget they have. I really do think they set a good example of how to spend money strategically.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m guessing Bezos has that same philosophy with his current business ventures. There’s something to be said for taking a few risks if the potential payoff is big enough.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was wondering that too.. NIAC sounds so cool.. but where does all that money come from?!!
Hopping in from the A-Z community,
Dream
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s all taxpayer money, I assume. I’m not an expert on how the federal budget works, but my understanding is that a small portion of the budget is set aside for this sort of thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ahh.. that makes sense!
LikeLiked by 1 person
.. “N” it took me until today to hit the blog from the Master list. 🙂 Not that I don’t see yours every day, or other day as it is but today is the day I would have re-found you 🙂 Great post and Cartoon 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! I’m way behind on the Master List. I have a lot of catching up to do right now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do it between other things. I spend a few minutes pulling them up, then leave a pile of tabs open then slowly go through them when i have a minute or two, like a special treat 🙂
LikeLike
If you don’t dream big, you’re unlikely to achieve things. I like the idea that there is a body doing that big dreaming (in a more structured scientific manner) about space – it’s necessary. I hope their budget doesn’t ever get squeezed too tight.
Debs visiting this year from
Making Yourself Relationship Ready
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know the program was canceled in its entirety after the 2008 financial crisis, but then it was brought back a few years later. Hopefully the funding for this is a little more secure now than it was back then.
LikeLiked by 1 person