Through NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program (NIAC), the agency invests in many seemingly impossible technologies. Known for taking out-of-the-box concepts that seem like science fiction and turning them into science fact, the program is changing the future of space travel.

NASA just announced that eight concepts were given the green light to move to the next development phase. NIAC’s phase II awards $500,000 for two years of study in order to further test these technologies. This year's selections include a special habitat designed to induce cryosleep for on long-duration missions, a robotic space habitat that is able to build itself and grow in lunar orbit (making it a perfect orbital outpost), and much more.

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