The military’s research wing issued a request for information Tuesday, seeking ideas and information for its 100-Year Starship project. The agency wants to identify groups interested in working on a business model for such a project, which could someday enable long-term human settlement of the cosmos.

 

We first heard about the concept last year when NASA’s Pete Worden, director of the Ames Research Center, described DARPA’s $100 million investment. (NASA kicked in $100,000.) Then we learned that the government is not actually planning on funding such a project, but rather looking for outsourced sponsors, in the same way 16th-century voyagers sought private financing.