 This week I'm talking about the Comet Hitchhiker, one of the cool projects to emerge out of my favorite program at NASA, NIAC. NIAC stands for NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts and it's this amazing program that funds the more sci-fi futuristic out there, sometimes very weird projects that could actually transform future space missions. One of the concepts to emerge from the NIAC program that I think is incredibly cool is the Comet Hitchhiker. It's a project that when I first heard about it I wasn't quite sure what was cool about it because we already have a really badass space probe Rosetta that's exploring a comet so why do we need another comet exploring space probe? Well Comet Hitchhiker isn't necessarily a concept just to go and explore a comet. The Comet Hitchhiker is actually a concept to use a comet as a propulsion system to be able to explore the solar system twice as fast as any of our current space probes are. Essentially the idea for the Comet Hitchhiker probe is to actually send up a space probe and have it harpoon into a comet and then reel out a huge very incredibly long tether and be able to actually harvest the kinetic energy from that comet catch up to the velocity of that comet and then utilize that comet as essentially a hitchhiking system so that the probe could explore the solar system twice as fast. This means that a space probe utilizing a comet as a propulsion system could actually reach Pluto in about five and a half years, about half the time that it's taking new horizons to go explore Pluto which has been a little bit under 10 years. To me there's some sort of space geek romanticism about this, the idea of using comets or asteroids or other natural celestial bodies in our solar system as propulsion systems to allow us to explore space in a much faster and much cooler way. Providing funding for incredibly cool projects like the comet hitchhiker is one of the reasons why I love the NASA innovative advanced concepts program so much. Although admittedly I'm incredibly biased because I am on their external council along with really cool sci-fi authors, quantum physicists and other really amazing scientists that help advise the program and help propel it forward. But NIAC is cool for a lot of reasons and one of which is actually the fact that anyone can actually propose an idea to NIAC. Anyone can submit a white paper. Usually they open up the white paper call around October or so and anyone can submit an idea for how future space missions could be transformed in a futuristic sci-fi yet credible and realistic way and they actually go on to fund some of those proposals and actually fund the research and development behind it so that it can really turn science fiction into science fact. Thanks so much for clicking the play button and geeking out with me today. I hope you enjoyed learning about the comet hitchhiker. I think I'll also try and talk about other NIAC projects in future episodes because there's an endless amount of them and they are endlessly endlessly cool. Remember to subscribe on YouTube so you can get those videos a lot easier and also donate to the Patreon campaign to support videos like this one on the tomorrow channel.