Travel 40 years into the future as NASA investigates
revolutionary concepts for space exploration at the 6th annual
NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) meeting in Seattle,
Wash., on October 19-20, 2004. The meeting is free and it is
open to the public. Those making the trip will get a glimpse at
future possibilities of space exploration, with presentations on
innovations like a sail driven by antimatter for deep-space
exploration, the use of tailored force fields to build massive
structures in space, and the use of biological molecules to
create nano-scale robots. Keynote speakers at the meeting
include Dr. Paul Spudis of the Johns Hopkins University Applied
Physics Laboratory, a noted moon expert and member of the
President's Commission on Implementation of United States Space
Policy; and Dr. Robert Hoyt of Tethers Unlimited, a pioneer in
momentum exchange tethers. Spudis will talk about "The New
Presidential Space Vision," and Hoyt will discuss "Space
Tethers: Lessons for developing 'revolutionary'