Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space

Center episode 310, Advancing Technologies. I'm Gary Jordan, I'll be your host today.

On this podcast we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts, all to let

you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more. On this podcast

we've discussed plans to advance humanity's future on the moon and Mars and described

many of the technologies and engineering solutions that will make this future possible. A lot

of thought has been put into these missions given our knowledge and understanding of the

capabilities of today and of course understanding that technologies will grow and mature.

Now what about far out ideas that are in their infancy but maybe worth trying out? Well

NASA has a home for these two. There's a program at NASA called NASA Innovative Advanced

Concepts that welcomes these far out ideas and provides inventors a way to mature them

with the hopes that maybe, just maybe, they can help us explore the cosmos and improve

our lives on Earth. Recently this organization happened to host a symposium here in Houston

right across the street from the Johnson Space Center. And for several days inventors,

scientists, and technologists got together to discuss some of the fantastic and I'll

admit unbelievable things that are in work. Almost like a science fiction convention but

for people trying to make science fiction into science fact. While they were in town,

I was able to grab Michael Appoint and John Nelson, program executive and deputy program

executive for NIAC respectively for a few moments to share their perspective on why these

initiatives are so important and to get us pumped about some of the cool technologies

being discussed. I of course zeroed in on human spaceflight technologies like nuclear

thermal propulsion that can take humans to and from Mars faster than ever or a lunar oxygen

...