An artist's conception shows a Stasis Habitat where astronauts could be held in suspended animation, as part of a spaceship complex that also includes an Earth Return Vehicle and a Mars Excursion Vehicle.

An artist's conception shows a Stasis Habitat where astronauts could be held in suspended animation, as part of a spaceship complex that also includes an Earth Return Vehicle and a Mars Excursion Vehicle

An artist's conception shows a Stasis Habitat where astronauts could be held in suspended animation, as part of a spaceship complex that also includes an Earth Return Vehicle and a Mars Excursion Vehicle

 NASA has granted funding to some dozen imaginative tech concepts, with the idea that one or more of them will bring about big breakthroughs wide science and exploration.

The 12 ideas, which are selected under Phase 1 of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC, is ambitious and varied. One aims to build biometrics such as human tissue having a 3D printer. Another provides induce deep-sleep torpor states in astronauts making the long journey to Mars.

Phase 1 awards count about $100,000. The selected mission teams use the cash to conduct nine-month initial analysis studies, then they're able to apply for Phase 2 funding of roughly $500,000 for 2 more many years of concept development.

• The selected concepts along with their principal investigators are:

•   Pulsed Fission-Fusion (PuFF) Propulsion System

•  Torpor-Inducing Transfer Habitat For Human Stasis To Mars

•  Two-dimensional Planetary Surface Landers

•  Dual-mode Propulsion System Enabling CubeSat Investigation of the Solar System

•  Growth Adapted Tensegrity Structures: A Fresh Calculus for that Space Economy

•  Eternal Flight as the Solution for 'X' 

•  Deep Mapping of Small Solar System Bodies with Galactic Cosmic Ray Secondary Particle Showers

•  Batteries Out of Thin Air: In Situ, On-Demand Printing of Advanced Biocomposites

•  Plasmonic Force Propulsion Revolutionizes Nano/PicoSatellite Capability

•  Transformers for Extreme Environments

•  10-Meter Suborbital Large Balloon Reflector

•  Low-Mass Planar Photonic Imaging Sensor

The NIAC program may be operating in the present form since 2011. The main NIAC, referred to as the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, ran from 1998 through 2007.