http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63362,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

For 25 years, Ross Hoffman has had a vision: to use tiny changes in the
environment to alter the paths of hurricanes, slow down snow storms and
turn dark days bright.

For most of those years, Hoffman kept his ideas largely to himself. His
adviser at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told him weather
control was too outlandish for his Ph.D. thesis. The chances of a
buttoned-down foundation or government agency funding such research were
so slim, Hoffman didn't even bother to ask.

But, in 2001, all that changed. Hoffman stumbled upon a tiny, obscure
cranny of the American space program -- the NASA Institute for Advanced
Concepts, or NIAC. In this $4 million-a-year agency, Hoffman found a
place where the wildest of ideas were not only tolerated, they were
welcome.

....

With his award, Hoffman tweaked a weather-prediction program to show
that moving a hurricane was possible -- at least in theory. Here's how:
You need a ring of satellites in orbit, channeling the sun's energy,
stretching around the Earth. The machines would beam power to the
planet, using microwaves. But, tuned to 183 GHz, they could also heat up
small regions of the atmosphere by a degree or two. Those small changes
could have enormous impact, Hoffman's simulation showed. A deadly
hurricane, headed for the Hawaiian island of Kauai, drifted off into the
Pacific, harmlessly.

"One of the great things about NIAC is that they never say, 'That's
crazy, you can never build a fleet of solar-powered space stations,'"
Hoffman said.

Such a system is decades off -- if it ever happens at all. But analysts
like Brian Chase, vice president of the Space Foundation, see research
like Hoffman's as critically important.

"It's impossible to make breakthroughs if all you're funding is
immediate, near-term applications," he said.

....


peace,

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