The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has just issued their 2005 call for proposals. According to their website:
“The NIAC is particularly interested in receiving proposals for innovative and visionary concepts that could make significant leaps beyond current plans and programs for aerospace endeavors and be supportive of the recently announced NASA goals for human and robotic exploration of the solar system.”
The NIAC motto is inspiring: “Don’t let your preoccupation with reality stifle your imagination.”
Therefore, my suggestion is that some (brave) individual submit a proposal for a propulsion system based on that hypothetical particle called the tachyon. I say “brave” because most physicists dismiss tachyons with phrases like “Tachyons are taken seriously by few physicists, because of the paradoxes they create, and because nearly all experiments specifically searching for tachyons have turned up negative.” However, tachyons do not seem to be forbidden by Quantum Mechanics, and there seems to be at least some support for the concept here, and here.
The proposals are due February 14, 2005.
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This is a good way for NASA to rengage the public imagination, and maybe even stumble upon the next big technological ideas.
I have a feeling NASA won’t be tackling tachyons anytime soon. Probably a little too adventuresome.