I think most of you are missing the Important word in this little bit of sentence
In other words this is a theory. They wish to test this theory. And they would like a grant to test this theory.
I see no reason why they couldn't get this grant. Goverments seem to give Research Grants all the time to people with kooky ideas and people who want to prove obvious things like "Doing jumping jacks for 5 hours straight while smoking and drinking is bad for you"
Besides most of what people take for granted as facts about space are still only theories. Just a few days ago I was reading a Scientific America magazine that had a story about a new theory that suggests our universe may actually be only 2 dimensions with the 3rd just being an illusion, kind of like a holligram. It said that this thoery actually cleared up some conflicting data that A 3 demensional universe created.
[
ant pant:]