NRC Weighs in on NIAC

Expert panel urges NASA to revive futuristic think tank, New Scientist
“NASA should revive its Institute for Advanced Concepts, a blue-skies idea mill that closed in 2007, says an expert panel – but it says the new incarnation should have its feet a little closer to the ground. NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) was founded in 1998 to harvest innovative ideas for spaceflight and aeronautics from outside the NASA community.”
Panel Says NASA Should Reopen Innovation Institute, Science
“The panel, chaired by aerospace engineer Robert Braun of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, determined that NIAC’s program was effective, that NASA has nothing comparable, and that the agency needs an organization to provide “visionary, far-reaching concepts.” As a result, the panel urged NASA to create a next-generation NIAC that reports directly to the agency’s chief. No comment yet from NASA. But the agency’s new administrator, Charles Bolden, is likely to be sympathetic to the recommendation. He said at his confirmation hearing in the Senate last month that he would push to reinvigorate an ambitious technology program at the agency.”
The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is Closing, earlier post
Killing NIAC, earlier post
NIAC Rises From The Dead to Make Time’s Best Inventions Of The Year, earlier post
Should NIAC be Revived?,