NASA funds experimental radiation shield and Mars climbing robot

NASA has just announced the projects that will be getting money from its NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) programme, which aims to support ideas for game-changing mission designs and never-before-seen space exploration tech. Here we look at five of the concepts and how they will be used. Astronauts venturing to the moon or Mars in the future are likely to face a barrage of hazardous space radiation during their trips, including high-energy particles and nuclei known as cosmic rays. To protect crews, one NIAC study is exploring the idea of what the project's lead, Elena D'Onghia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, calls a "deployable magnetic shield device". The CREW HaT system would consist of a ring of electrical coils positioned on arms roughly 5 metres from the spacecraft's main body.