Future Space-Gear Ideas Presented at NASA Meeting

By Dan Sorenson

Spray-on spacesuits, roll-up telescopes, frost-proof plants and space elevators?

Those were some of the ideas rolled out at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. The organization, founded to encourage development of ideas 20 to 40 years from reality, held this year’s meeting Tuesday and Wednesday at the Tucson Marriott, 880 E. Second St.

NIAC Director Robert Cassanova said the agency’s encouragement seeks to turn today’s "napkin drawings" into 3-D reality for the purposes of astronomy and space exploration.

Ideas presented at this year’s event came from everyone from famous university-based Ph.D.s to private industry researchers, citizen scientists and students. Many of them were awarded cash prizes or are already working under NIAC’s staged grant system.

Future astronauts won’t expend precious energy fighting cumbersome spacesuits the way NASA moonwalkers did, according to one of the featured presenters. They may even have their strength enhanced by their sleek suits, according to MIT Professor Dava Newman.

While a paint-on fabric suitable for the rigors of space travel is not yet ready, Newman said her team is already vacuum-testing suits made from a fabric that the wearer can be wrapped in like a mummy.

Other future spacesuit advances being tried include fabrics with varying levels of elasticity, mimicking the differences between skin on the thigh and that on the knee.

Ultimately, synthetic muscles embedded in the suit’s fabric could assist the astronaut’s body, enhancing the ability to do work without tiring.

Other ideas include:

–A space-based telescope, that would make distant planets more visible by using a critically-shaped central disc to black out the glare of the stars they orbit..

–A space-based telescope that uses a mirror made from particles "trapped" by laser light

–A proposal from Roger Angel, a University of Arizona regents professor and director of its Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory, for a space-based solar shield to reduce the effects of global warming.

He also proposed a moon-based polar telescope using a spinning liquid mirror.

–Contact reporter Dan Sorenson at 573-4185 or dsorenson@azstarnet.com