Innovation and Space Technology Discussed

WASHINGTON – Technology – Living in space? Is it science fiction or is it going to be reality? If you consider the number of devices we use everyday that were once considered part of science fiction, it is very likely that one day people will be living on other planets.

Those concepts and more innovations will be the topic of a symposium in California.

Stanford University’s Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center in Palo Alto, Calif., will be the site of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Symposium Feb. 4-6.

NIAC supports early studies of visionary concepts, which may one day enable new missions or transformative advances in future aerospace capabilities.

NIAC Symposium Livestream

During the symposium NIAC fellows will present and discuss the progress of all current studies. Keynote speakers will include Jamie Hyneman, host of the television show “Mythbusters”; Peter Norvig, director of research at Google Inc.; and Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute. Other speakers include Charbel Farhat, chairman of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University in California; Pete Worden, director of NASA’s Ames Research Center; and Gary Hudson, president of the Space Studies Institute in Mojave, Calif. The event also will include a Stanford student poster session.

NIAC is part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA’s future missions. NIAC awardees come from academia, the private sector and government research labs.