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Aeronautics

NASA Aeronautics Hearing

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 26, 2012
Filed under , ,

NASA Aeronautics Research Critical to Maintaining America’s Lead in Global Aviation Market
Democrats Urge Continued Support for Aeronautics Research
“Because of the lengthy gestation period needed to move from concept to deployment, industry has often been reluctant to apply resources to high risk, fundamental aeronautics research and development (R&D) –an investment often needed as a forerunner to bringing to market new technologies and capabilities. NASA and successive Congresses believe that NASA has a unique role to play in this pre-competitive area and see sustaining the Nation’s competitive edge in aviation as requiring an examination of innovative technical concepts and sustained government investment in R&D.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

12 responses to “NASA Aeronautics Hearing”

  1. DTARS says:
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    Would Stratolaunch and fly-back boosters come under this type R and D and if not should it???

    • SomeGuy42 says:
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      No and no.  Fly-back booster research should be funded by the space side of the house, Aero’s budget has been pretty flat, and is almost a rounding error in the full NASA budget.  I think Stratolaunch is being developed without any federal funding.

      That said, you do want airplane and flight test/research people involved in that kind of research.

  2. no one of consequence says:
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    NASA came from the highly successful NACA.

    With it trackable improvement in GDP for decades.

    Why would we want less GDP now?

    What economically retarded group wants to abandon growth drivers for the US economy when you’ve got China booming?

    Are they trying to sabotage the US economy by losing aeronautics?

    Is it malignancy or idiocy?

    Who put the idiot in ideology? Lets take them out and shoot them.

  3. hamptonguy says:
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    NASA’s aeronautics program is a shadow of what it was 10 – 15 years ago and even then it was in decline.  At far less than 5% of the NASA budget, it is in constant replanning as facilities age and are closed and people retire and lessons and expertise is lost.  Programs are constantly being renamed, rescoped, ended, begun, and what is really accomplished is hard to say.  If anyone thought the head of NASA aeronautics would say anything but sunshine and happiness then no one has been listening to the person in this position for the last 10+ years.  NASA would be more accurate if it was NSA but that acronym is already taken.  NASA LaRC is shutting more facilities this year along with the Unitary Wind Tunnel complex.  Of course there is not enough R&D work to justify these amazing facilities.  NASA does not do more than a trickle of real R&D anymore in aero and the prices they wish to charge drive off work from smaller companies that may wish to do innovative work but find the rates too much to pay.  In 5 – 10 years NASA aeronautics probably will not even exist in any form that can be recognized.  Many NASA managers truly believe that computers and contracts can do what used to be done by NASA researchers, engineers, and technicians as it is seen as cheaper and certainly far easier.  Once this experience is gone there will be no way to get it back.  NASA will be just another government agency paying for services and having little idea if they are getting what they want or pay for.

  4. JadedObs says:
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    What’s REALLY pathetic is they are completely IGNORING the NRC draft report calling for fewer but more focused aero R&D efforts leading to light demonstrations. Not that they can do much – thanks to Congress, even though they have dropped the budget from over $800M to about $500, they still have nearly the same number of people!

    • SomeGuy42 says:
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      I thought the budget bill text for Aero called for a NASA response and plan for the NRC recommendations?  

  5. hikingmike says:
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    “NASA has a unique role to play in this pre-competitive area”
    True!

    “Democrats Urge Continued Support for Aeronautics Research”
    Thank you Democrats!

  6. dogstar29 says:
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    NASA still has the capability to play a vital role in aeronautics and there are still capable people who would like to do more of it.  
    Problems: 1) inexcusale lack of funding and disinterest in Washington, and center directors who think space is the only mission and fail to back up local aero efforts with center funds. HQ-level programs that are too cumbersome and slow to respond. Turf battles over what little funding there is. Assumption by NASA that SBIR and similar industry assistance is only for “R&D” and not to get products to the level where they are actually viable.
    2) the Boeing protest to WTO over EU loans to Airbus resulted in an overcautious attitude regarding “government assistance” to US industry. Instead of suing EU under the WTO, why didn’t Boeing just demand more assistance from NASA to compensate?
    3) As a result of 1&2, pressure on NASA centers to do aero research only when paid for by industry, with restrictions on use of IP, coupled with high overhead and sometimes extraordinary obstacles to work for others.
    4) Instead of focussing on “programs”, NASA should return to the original NACA model of using tax dollars to do specific research of direct interest to industry, partially in-house but contracting for work when feasible, and disseminating the results rather than restricting access.

    • DTARS says:
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      4 number sounds wonderful and what they SHOULD do but is it possible???? Or do they have to wait till the cr$& hits the fan first?????

  7. hikingmike says:
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     More SCRAMJET!

    • DTARS says:
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      Agree! 🙂

      • dogstar29 says:
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        Scramjet is an attractive concept for cruise missiles but not for spacelaunch. All airbreathing engines have relatively narrow speed and altitude bands at which they are efficient, while a launch vehicle does not cruise at all, it accelerates rapidly until it is out of the atmosphere. To minimize gravity losses it accelerates as quickly as posisblee. To minimize drag losses it goes almost straight up until out of the atmosphere, and then turns downrange.

        If an initial cruise stage is used at all, only a subsonic aircraft has the carrying capacity for the upper stage, and for anything larger than Pegasus the aircraft has to be bigger than any standard design, i.e. Stratolaunch. A supersonic aircraft of this size would not be feasible.