"'NIAC is looking for grand ideas and grand visions -- big ideas that might inspire new enabling technologies. We state explicitly that the concept or architectural system does not have to have the enabling technology available to make it work. And the science does not have to be totally understood,' Cassanova [Robert Cassanova, director of NASA's National Institute for Advanced Concepts, or NIAC for short] said."

"NASA changes science fiction into science fact" reported by Alok Jha at the Taipei Times' website (originally from The Gaurdian, London).