The two agencies today jointly put out a call today for ideas and abstracts for possible presentation at the , which is set to be held in Orlando, Fla., Sept. 30 through Oct. 2.

The project pairs up the U.S. Department of Defense's research arm - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. or DARPA -- with NASA's Ames Research Center. With DARPA footing the bill, the two agencies are working to come up with a plan for creating technology that can help humans within 100 years.

"One-hundred years is a pretty good period of time to inspire research to go out and tackle problems that will have you asking questions you didn't even know to ask at the beginning," said David Neyland, director of the Tactical Technology Office for DARPA, today. "The investment must have a long-term goal and ancillary benefits to the government and NASA."

The overall effort kicked off last year and continued in January with a DARPA-hosted workshop in the Bay Area that featured an eclectic mix of sci-fi authors, physicists, educators and biologists discussing why humans should . The group also talked about the physics of interstellar travel and who should go on such a long and perilous trip.

"We want to capture the imagination of folks who might not be thinking of coming into research and development," said Neyland.