text: The most exotic real physics program I ever heard of was NASA's deceased Breakthrough Propulsion Physics research program.  The funded projects read like a sci-fi nut's dream. The beauty was that this was REAL science testing feasibility of different ideas that were not clearly bogus.\n\nhttp://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/\n\nI encourage you to explore this material, however in the interest of not taking the name of real science in vain, I am reposting an excerpt near the bottom of that page, that you should read and take to heart.\n---------\nCautionary note: On a topic this visionary and whose implications are profound, there is a risk of encountering, premature conclusions in the literature, driven by overzealous enthusiasts as well as pedantic pessimists. The most productive path is to seek out and build upon publications that focus on the critical make-break issues and lingering unknowns, both from the innovators' perspective and their skeptical challengers. Avoid works with broad-sweeping and unsubstantiated claims, either supportive or dismissive.\n----------\n\nRemember, making spectacular claims about what you read there can damage such explorations in the future when your claims prove to be incorrect and those who learn this then dismiss out of hand anything associated with similar work as quackery.