I'm a researcher working in propulsion technologies at NASA. For what it's worth, the "Eagleworks" guys at JSC are basically doing their own thing that, as far

I'm a researcher working in propulsion technologies at NASA. For what it's worth, the "Eagleworks" guys at JSC are basically doing their own thing that, as far as I can tell, is outside of any peer review process. For the life of me I can't imagine a team at one of the research centers (GRC, LaRC, ARC, GSFC, JPL) getting away with that. I'm guessing that they're running off of resources from center-level micro seedling funding. On one hand, the effort is probably costing next to nothing in terms of FTE and procurement. On the other hand, they're giving the public warp-drive level expectations, when the agency can barely afford to keep the lights on for a manned spaceflight program.