Pentagon, NASA Talking Interstellar Travel -- NASA/DARPA Hundred Year Starship Study

President Barack Obama may have scrapped plans to return the moon, but now the Pentagon and NASA are working to create an organization that could one day take mankind to the stars and beyond.

NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a research arm of the Pentagon, held an invitation-only meeting earlier this month in San Francisco. The meeting, which included an eclectic mix of science fiction writers, scientists and entrepreneurs, was designed to kick off something called the 100-Year Starship Study, which is looking at way to enable interstellar travel.

Just don't expect a space ship anytime soon.

The goal of the project, insist attendees and DARPA, is not to build an Enterprise-style starship. Rather, the intent is to lay the groundwork for a self-sustaining organization or even a business that would invest the time and money to make such technology possible.