NASA Funds Cutting-Edge Projects for Future Innovation

NASA Is Funding , the Projects of the Future.<br />Last week, NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts <br />(NIAC) program announced grants for 14 teams <br />exploring high-risk, high-reward projects.<br />'Wired' reports that some of the projects, like a lunar oxygen pipeline or new building material for <br />use on Mars, could be technological game changers.<br />These are things looking 20 to 30 years <br />down the road to see how we could <br />drastically improve or enable <br />new types of NASA missions, Mike LaPoint, NASA's Innovative <br />Advanced Concepts (NIAC), via 'Wired'.<br />The $175,000 grants will be used to <br />lay out detailed plans, run tests and design <br />new prototypes based off of Phase 1 projects.<br />The select few chosen to go on <br />to Phase 2 will receive $600,000 <br />for an additional two-year study.<br />A single exceptional project will then <br />receive an award of $2 million to enter into <br />another two-year long Phase 3 study.<br />According to 'Wired,' one of the most interesting <br />projects is a proposal to build a habitat out of <br />fungi and bacteria grown on the surface of Mars.<br />A University of Nebraska team is exploring <br />the idea of self-growing building blocks <br />using minerals formed within a bioreactor.<br />Another NIAC winner has proposed building a massive <br />pipeline on the surface of the moon to deliver <br />much-needed oxygen to astronauts on a future lunar base.<br />'Wired' reports that the new tech will create <br />oxygen as a byproduct of mining for water <br />ice utilizing a process called electrolysis