NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts

The task of the company founded in February 1998, NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts ( NIAC ) was to identify and promote unconventional, bold concepts for aerospace. The institution awarded scholarships especially to a large extent independent of the NASA researchers and inventors. Selected projects were supported to develop promising concepts to prototypes.

The aim was to explore revolutionary ideas that would allow a technological leap in space travel. The program was so focused on projects with a horizon for implementation within the next ten to forty years. One of the most exciting in the public eye most sensation projects was to investigate concepts for the realization of a space lift. The NIAC was closed on 31 August 2007. 2011, the program was reinstated as a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts.