Friday, July 08, 2005
Peck Receives Grant from NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts

Professor Mason Peck has received one of the small number of grants awarded this year by NIAC for revolutionary aeronautics and space concepts that could dramatically impact how NASA develops and conducts its missions. The one-year grant will fund a study of Lorentz-Augmented Orbits, which spacecraft traveling through the earth's magnetic field experience when they carry an electrostatic charge. Not only do such orbits come in surprising and useful shapes, but spacecraft using this means of propulsion can also escape from earth's orbit by "stealing" some of the earth's rotational kinetic energy. The project is eligible for a two-year follow-on grant of up to $400K. For more information, http://www.niac.usra.edu/studies/studies.jsp?cpnum=05-01