NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts

[Astronuc]

The subject came up in another thread.

http://www.niac.usra.edu/

http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/misc/

What they have funded.

http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/misc/Overview_for_AIAA_TC.pdf

Highlights of CP 01-02 (from Overview_for_AIAA_TC.pdf)
NIAC is particularly interested in receiving proposals for innovative and visionary concepts from disciplines that are normally focused on non-aerospace endeavors and may have the potential for innovative application in the aerospace sector. These concepts may be emerging at the interface of traditional disciplines where innovation often springs forth in non-aerospace fields.

NIAC is specifically NOT interested in concepts that, for example, would:
•Continue the development of technology concepts that by their very nature, are narrowly focused
on the development and performance of subsystems or components;
•Develop a new specialized instrument;
•Develop a new, high performance material;
•Incrementally extend the performance of an aerospace system orpreviously studied concept;
•Accomplish an incremental system development, technology demonstration, or other supporting
development program that is closely linked to an existing NASA program or mission and
would be a near-term progression of the existing program or mission;
•Develop a concept that is solely based on technically unsubstantiated science fiction;
•Develop a program or workshop plan with no specifically described architecture or system;
•Solely perform research experiments with no connection to an overall architecture or system.

[RainmanAero]

Hello Astronuc, Engineering Guru!

The subject came up in another thread.

http://www.niac.usra.edu/

http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/misc/

What they have funded.

http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/misc/Overview_for_AIAA_TC.pdf

Highlights of CP 01-02 (from Overview_for_AIAA_TC.pdf)
•Solely perform research experiments with no connection to an overall architecture or system.

I agree with NASA's direction on this. What they really need are innovative system architecture concepts that will be able to handle the massively non-linear information base associated with all of its complex tasks associated with developing systems to return to the Moon and move on to Mars.

There is actually a mathematical model I have developed, in the language of vectors and tensors, which applies to system information architectures and how they need to be analyzed and developed "orthogonally" just as we develop dynamical systems according to 3-dimensional orthogonal physical dynamics.

The 3 orthogonal dimensions of metrics associated with any generalized system can be classified as:

Operational Dimension - Time and Frequency Based Performance Measures.

Functional Dimension - Transform and Function Based Peformance Measures.

Physical Dimension - Physical Characteristic Measures of the System and the Physical Environment that if operates within.

I have developed an orthogonal tensor set math that overlays these 3 system performance domains. It is also the subject of a SE development book that I am working on as part of my university teaching engagements.

In summary, I am a big proponent of systems theory and development of coherent system information architectures to help us define future capabilities. After all, there is hardly any arguing that we live in the Information Age!

Rainman