Airbus have a program where wild ideas are tossed around and some are put forward to the concept stage and maybe bits of them go beyond. Some will get through and some won't. I've been lucky enough to have beers with a couple of these guys and there are some truly awesome ideas out there that they are working on, and they'd just be the ones they're allowed to talk about!
If it wasn't for thinking outside the box and pushing ideas, we would still be with horse and cart. If that.