|
   |
 |
                 
|
>>Good morning. Welcome to NASA Ames. I'm Tom Clausen with the education office and we're glad
you were able to come today and appreciative of the teachers and the principals
and buses and all the things that have to come together. We've been preparing for this day for awhile. We'll do three things together. You'll be here about an hour and then from here you'll go
on your tours. You're going to different places but you'll stay together
as a group. It's important to stay together as a group. You'll see some of the research facilities at Ames and
also lots of things other than that as you drive and walk around. Then when you're finished with the tour you'll go down to
the NASA hangar, building 211 where we've set up hands-on activities for you to
participate in. Lots of fun down there. We'll see you there. Let's make sure everybody is here. Call out if you're here. Where is MONTOBELLO school. Are you here? Really. Okay. J.L.S., are you here? There we go. Okay. Baldwin school, Baldwin. Seaview. KURTNOR. ULOA. Linda vista. Okay, we'll come back. MONTEBELLO. Much better. Okay. Now, for this -- now this next hour you're going to be
joined -- there is about 350 in you but we'll be joined by an audience watching
from their computers and in school computer labs across the country from the
WebCast. At the end when we take questions we'll take some
questions from the WebCast also. In fact, as we go through this morning with Mr. Jacobsen,
remember your questions. I notice some of you have pen and pencil. Jot those downs. We'll save the questions for the end and be able to
address those when we get to the close of our time here. If for some reason we need to leave this room because of
an emergency, we'll use both the doors on the sides and the doors that you came
through. But you'll stay together once again as a group. Okay? I would like you now to welcome our airspace systems
program director, the person who brought this day together for you. His name is Bob Jacobsen. Please welcome him. >> Good morning. That's pretty exciting stuff, isn't it? Well, I tell you that was the launch of the space shuttle
Columbia last March from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The space shuttle is just an airplane. As a matter of fact, it's a glider. It has a rocket that helps take off but it has no engine
when it returns. It has to be right the first time to get on the ground. We'll spend a few minutes this morning looking at where
all of that came from. And it basically started with the dreams of people who
had a love of aviation and they held onto those dreams and they made them
happen. Well, it all began about 125 years ago with two brothers
called the Wright brothers. I want to ask you a question. How many of you have flown? In an airplane. Yeah, quite a few of you. How many of you would like to do it again or would like
to if you haven't? Good. Okay. Let me ask you one other question. Have you ever dreamed of something that you would like to
do that no one else has ever done before? That's good. That's good. We want you to hold onto those dreams and someday you'll
make them happen. The Wright brothers lived in Dayton, Ohio. And their father in 1878, that was almost 125 years ago,
their father brought home one day a little toy. This toy had a rubber band in it that you could wind up
and this toy lifted off the ground and then it just fell back down. Well, this peaked their interest in aviation and they
never lost that interest and that dream that they wanted to fly. So let's move forward now into about, oh, 1892. Now, that is about 110 years ago. I don't think any of you were there been, were you? Neither was -- oh, he was, okay. All right. In 1892, 110 years ago the Wright brothers decided that
what they wanted to do was open a bicycle shop. It had become very popular as a mode of transportation in
those days. Most people moved around the countryside on horses or by
horse-drawn buggies. So the bicycle was a big improvement for around the
towns. So they opened a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Now, that bicycle shop was pretty successful and they
spent a lot of time at it. They made bicycles as well as selling them and fixing
them so they had the capability to build things. It was successful and they spent about the next eight
years pursuing, along with selling bicycles and making bicycles, pursuing their
love of aviation and their dream of flying. In the year 1900, the turn of the century, the Wright
brothers needed to go someplace which had more wind and some slopes that they
could glide down and some soft places to land for the flying machines that they
were developing. They didn't have those things in Dayton in Ohio. So they contacted the U.S. Weather Bureau and said where
would you recommend we go? The weather bureau said we think the best place for you
is in a place called Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It's on a piece of sand, basically that's off the
Atlantic coast of North Carolina called the outer banks. Lots of sand dunes and steady winds coming off the
Atlantic ocean. The Wright brothers went there. For the next couple of years they went back and forth to
Kitty Hawk testing out the ideas they had for their flying machines. Well, there were a couple of problems that were
significant and big problems that they had with their flying machines that the
other folks -- there were other people developing flying machines as well and
everyone was having these problems. One was control of the airplane. How to keep the airplane balanced. Well, Wilbur Wright liked watching the birds and how they
fly. So he looked at how they twist their wings to keep
themselves balanced in the air. And so he suggested that they build that kind of
capability into their flying machine. So they did. They called it wing warping so it actually mimiced the
ways the birds fly. The other problem -- that was a first, by the way. No one had ever done that before. The next problem that was plaguing everyone was
generating enough lift to have a successful airplane that could carry a person,
as well as the weight of the airplane itself. Well, that was a little bit more difficult because it
wasn't -- there was nothing to watch to see how to solve that problem. So being resourceful, they back in Dayton in the back
room of their bicycle shop, they built a wind tunnel. This is one of the first wind tunnels in the world. It wasn't very big by today's standards but it was a wind
tunnel and in that tunnel they tested little wings. And those little wings, what they learned from those, was
that the curvature of the wing was very, very important in generating lift. And the other thing that they learned was that the angle
-- we call it angle of attack. The angle the wing makes with the air was the other most
important thing. So they incorporated some of these ideas into their
flying machine. And let me ask you a question. How many of you have brothers or sisters? Okay, a lot of you. You ever argue with them? Okay. Well, the Wright brothers argued as well. That's natural. They didn't always agree at first on how to solve a
problem. But they always argued to a constructive end to develop a
solution to the problems and they incorporated all of those solutions in their
airplane. Well, in 1902, they took their airplane back to Kitty
Hawk and they flew it down the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk with a better wing and
a control system. And they made about 1,000 flights that year down these
sand dunes and they were able to control their airplane, landing where they
wanted to land rather than where the wind pushed them. And this was a huge success in the world of developing
flying machines. Well, so they decided the next step was to -- was to be
able to carry a person. And go on level ground from one place to another. They realized that in order to do that, they had to have
some way of making the airplane move through the air so they needed an engine. Well, I've already said that horses were the way that
they did that for most people those days. Well, it was pretty hard to put a horse on this airplane. So what they did was they looked at the other ways that
we had invented that were generating power. Well, one of the popular -- one other popular
transportation mode in those days was the railroad. So they looked at the trains and how did they generate
their power and how did they move? Well, all of the trains back then were steam trains,
steam engines. Well, steam engines are big, they're generally pretty
heavy, and they're not really suited for putting on an airplane. Well, it just so happened that about the same time, the
automobile was being invented. Well, the automobile had the same problem. And it needed an engine to make it move. The automobile inventors had developed the gasoline
engine. And so the Wright brothers studied up on that engine and
realized that this is their solution. But the ones that existed that the automobile folks had
developed were still too heavy for their airplane. So the Wright brothers in their bicycle shop designed and
built their own gasoline engine for their airplane. So they put that engine on the bottom wing of their
airplane and they made a place next to that engine for the pilot to lay down on
the wing and gave him all the controls and in 1903 they took this airplane back
to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. On December 17th in 1903, it's about 99 years ago next
week, December 17th, history was made, aviation history was made with the first
flight of a man-carrying powered airplane on the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina. It was a huge, huge event in aviation history. Now, the interesting thing is they flew this airplane. It took off, it landed, but it only was in the air for 12
seconds. That's not very long. It only flew for 120 feet. Well, let's see, 120 feet is less than half of a football
field. So it's not very far. But the important thing was that they were not going
downhill. They took off and landed on relatively level ground. So just a huge, huge success. So there are lots of us that have these dreams. And NASA is full of people that are like that. And we're going to take some time now. We're through with the history lesson for a while. We'll take some time now and look at some of the things
that NASA has done recently to develop new technologies in the aviation world. The first one that we're going to look at is Helios. Now, Helios is an airplane that NASA designed for one
purpose. And that purpose was to fly at very high altitudes and
stay up there for very long times. High altitudes, I mean about 100,000 feet. 100,000 feet is about three or four times as high as
passenger jets fly today. And it's about 20 miles straight up. This would have been -- if we could do this this would be
a world record for propeller-driven airplanes. That was one of the goals. The other one is to stay up a long time. And not just hours, days. Stay up there for a very long time. There are uses for such a machine. So NASA decided that if you can't come down and land
because you're supposed to be up there, you have to have some way of getting
power. So on this airplane they put solar cells. So there are solar cells all over the top surface of this
wing. During the daylight, the sun's energy that falls on that
wing is converted into electricity by the solar cells. That electricity does two things during the day. It powers the electric motors on this airplane, there are
14 of them. And what power it doesn't need, what electrical energy it
doesn't need for that it puts in batteries so at night with no sunlight the
batteries continue to power these motors and this airplane can continue to fly. The next day the sun comes up and it just keeps on going. Great accomplishment. Now, this airplane is not very rugged. It is very lightweight relatively speaking and it is very
big. It may not look that big here but that wing span from tip
to tip is 247 feet. Now, that's twice as far as the Wright brothers flew on
their first flight and it's almost the length of a football field. So it's a very big airplane. So let's take a look now at how NASA built this airplane
and the flights that we had that were so successful. (music)(music) >> Are you ready? >> When Tom gets in, have him get on right away so
we can proceed with the aircraft powerup. >> Clear aircraft. Coming up for takeoff now. >> Okay. You're airborne. >> Roger. >> Air speed 32. >> Roger. >> Go ahead, NASA 2. >> We've been watching you bounce around now. It's probably a record flight. Congratulations. I think it's time to turn around. >> Let's get behind it. >> That was beautiful. And please stop so all brakes can get out and all brakes
in good shape. Please take control of the aircraft. [APPLAUSE] >> Well, as you can tell we get excited when we do
something that is important as well. I wanted to tell you that flight was flown in Hawaii, in
case you didn't recognize all the palm trees. One of the questions that seems to be important is where
do the people come from that do this kind of thing? Let me tell you a little bit about where I grew up and
how I got here. I grew up in the central valley in California over near
Fresno. I had always loved airplanes from the time I was very
young. And when I was about your age, I began building model
airplanes. And I still build them today. I think they're a fun and exciting way to enjoy my spare
time but also to learn while I'm doing it. Well, all the way through school, in grade school, in
junior high, in high school and even in college, I always had a teacher that
was encouraging me to follow my dreams. And supporting me in doing that. And never to let go of those dreams. I did lots of things. I built an addition to model airplanes in those days. I built model rockets. Rockets while I was in high school got to be a big deal. Well, I tell you what, I wasn't real good at model
rockets. Most of mine didn't work. They either didn't work or they blew up when they did
work. But that didn't stop me. I enjoyed doing it so I built another one. I even did that while I was in college. I had a job for a while working for a company that builds
big rockets. And I designed some of those. I'll tell you what, the one I designed blew up there,
too. So these -- the development of new ideas is never a
smooth road. And you just have to hold on to those dreams and work at
them and you can make them happen. So let's now look at some of the things now that we're
doing in NASA currently today. And we've spent a lot of time in NASA over the years,
including me, looking at how to make airplanes fly better. Well, a few years ago, we realized that making a single
airplane fly better is not all of the answer. We also need to be able to make all of the airplanes in
the air at the same time fly efficiently together, but yet stay apart and land
safely. That's the job of air traffic controllers. I want -- we're going to look at a video now that
represents -- it will look to you initially like a bunch of yellow ants
crawling all over something like a sugar cube, but it's not. Each of the little triangles represents an airplane and
this is a map of the United States. We've taken one day of air transportation in the United
States and condensed it to play in one minute. Or thereabouts. Okay? And what you're going to see is -- it is going to start
at about 4:00 in the afternoon here on the west coast and it is going to get
dark. Not on the picture, but in real life it will have gotten
dark and you'll see what happens to the air traffic. And then it's nighttime and then the sun is going to come
out and it starts first on the east coast and comes up on the west coast. So we'll see what happens to the air traffic and when we
come back, I want to -- I'm going to ask how many airplanes you think are
flying over the United States right now while we're talking. Let's run the video. Okay, so it's getting toward dark now. The sun is going down. Not as many people want to fly at night so there aren't
as many airplanes in the air. But then who flies at night? Well, it's the Fed Ex and UPS and the guys that carry
cargo. So you see it started in the Midwest. Now the sun is coming up on the east coast and all these
airplanes are coming back. These coming up here are coming in from Europe. These are going to South America. And then the west coast comes alive as the sun moves
across and the airplanes from the east coast get there. So what that picture tells you is that there are a lot of
airplanes in the air over the United States. Now, there are about -- well, there are over 5,000
airplanes flying over the United States right now while we're talking. And it's the job of the air traffic controller to keep
all of those airplanes apart and to make sure they land safely. Well, you've all been to -- well, maybe not all of you,
but most of you have been flying so when you went to the airport, maybe you saw
the control tower. Well, the control tower is one place where air traffic
control is managed. Air traffic is managed by controllers. Well, at the control tower the thing that you'll notice
is that there are windows all the way around it so the controllers can see all
of the airport and the airplanes that are arriving and departing at that
airport. Well, we built, in order to study these problems and
develop new solutions and bring new technology to this profession, we developed
a simulator here of a control tower. We call it FutureFlight Central. Well -- but it doesn't have any windows that look out
over anything. But what it does have, instead of windows, is a whole
circle of computer screens. And those computer screens are just like the video games
that you guys play. So this is kind of NASA's ultimate video game. But with this tool, we can simulate and replicate any
airport in the world by programming that airport's characteristics into our
computers. So it's an exciting tool that we use. Well now we've looked at some of the things that we have
done and we've talked about -- we've talked about altitudes and airplanes
designed for specific purposes. We've talked about air traffic control. Now I want to look at some of the airplanes, some of the
new airplanes that NASA is working on. And most of these airplanes -- all of these airplanes are
designed to do a job. And do that job well. This is just to indicate that there are several kinds of
airplanes required. And we're going to talk a little bit about those. We have airports that are a long ways apart from each
other. Airports, and we need airplanes to carry people from --
between those. We want to go around the world so we want to develop very
fast airplanes to do that so the time is reduced. So we have that kind of technology. The Helios airplane, by the way, didn't have a pilot on
it. It was flown from the ground by radio. There will be a need for those kinds of airplanes in the
future. That's these guys. And then there is the launch vehicle so the rockets that
we're going to need. Well, these airplanes many people, not just NASA, are
helping to design these airplanes of the future. This airplane is the newest airplane designed by Boeing. Now, Boeing is the largest airplane manufacturer in the
world. And this airplane is called the sonic cruiser. The reason they call that the sonic cruiser is that it
flies at nearly the speed of sound. And it will carry about as many or maybe a few more
passengers than passenger airline -- passenger jets today. And it will fly about the same distances but it will go
faster so it is going to be a more efficient system forgetting -- for getting you where you want to
go. This is an airplane that NASA built and it is a series in
what we call our X planes. X is for
experimental. This is the hyper X. It's a hyper sonic airplane. That means that this airplane flies many times the speed
of sound. This one is designed to fly at mock 7. Seven times the speed of sound up to mock 10. To put that into perspective for you, let's say you're
driving down the highway in the car with your folks and you're going at 60
miles-per-hour. That is pretty common today. At 60 miles-per-hour you travel one mile in one minute. That's what 6 miles-per-hour is. Well, at MACH7 this airplane flies at 3,600
miles-per-hour and that is one mile every second. So that's an airplane that could get you from here to,
say, Tokyo in a reasonably short amount of time. That's why we work on that design. The next one we're going to look at is an airplane that
we call the morphing wing. This airplane is a little earlier in its stages of
development. In order to build this kind of an airplane we have to
develop the materials that it's made of. The reason for that is that this airplane is designed
with what we call smart materials. Now, smart materials are metals that you can put
electricity on and they change shape. They move. Its -- no hinges or anything, they just move. If you put those kinds of materials in the right places
on the wing of this airplane, and you apply the electricity in the right place
at the right time, you can change the shape of this wing. You can make it curve more so you generate more lift like
the Wright brothers found out with their wind tunnel was needed. Or you can put it on the wing in such a way that you can
vary its angle of sweep, we call it. At high speeds it's more efficient. We can change this airplane to be more efficient and all
the various conditions that it has to fly in. So there is the last airplane I want to look at here. This is called a personal air vehicle. Today it would be sort of the equivalent of what you
might talk about as a light airplane. It's about the same size as that. Has a jet engine. But the thing that's really different about this airplane
is it has a computer on board. And that computer not only helps the pilot, that computer
flies the airplane. And you don't have to learn how to fly to travel in an
airplane like this. You just get in this airplane and you tell it I want to
go to Fresno and it will take you there. So we're going to look at how this might work. >> I was afraid this would happen. Look at the Thanksgiving day traffic. >> Can
we get around it? >> No, we're stuck. >> When are we going to get there? >> Hard to say but we could be here for a while. I better call grandma, it could be hours. >> Are we there yet? >> No, not yet. Let's find out how much longer it will be. Computer, what is our arrival time? >> Estimated time of arrival is 2:32 p.m.>>
Computer, how much longer? >> Approximately 45 minutes. Advisory, severe icing conditions ahead due to developing
weather front. Recommend course change. >> Honey, will we still get there on time? >> Computer, we want to arrive on time. Can you adjust our course and still get us there as
planned? >> Yes. >> Computer, alter course. >> Altering course and increasing speed to 276
knots. Estimated time of arrival is now 2:30 p.m. Advisory, traffic conflict ahead. Altering course to avoid unidentified aircraft. >> It's too bad all planes are not completely
automated yet. Flying sure would be safer. >> And easier. That old plane looked like a prop job my dad flew. It was a handful. I don't know how they did it in those days. Computer, activate the artificial vision display. I'm checking a few things. I downloaded an update for the computer software and
wanted to make sure everything is okay. >> Who is going to be at grandpa and grandma's
house? >> Uncle Larry, aunt Beth. Hi, mom. Just fine. We'll be on the ground in about ten minutes. >> How are you doing? >> Hey, grandpa. >> Hi, grandma. Good to see you again. >> That would be pretty neat, wouldn't it? Well, this -- we aren't quite there yet. This is what it might look like but we're working on the
technologies now to make that happen. So now I want to -- I want to ask you guys a question. Who is going to develop all these technologies and make
them happen in the future? Before you answer, most of you might say it's us. But, in fact, it's you. You're the ones that are going to do all of these things. Because we need you -- we need you to make this happen. At NASA, we spend our -- we spend all of our lives, all
of our time, developing new technologies, holding onto those dreams that we've
had, working at those dreams and making them happen. I want you to do that, too. Because we do that every day here at NASA. Thanks a lot. And we're going to take some questions now. >> Yes, we are. Thank you, Mr. Jacobsen. Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE] >> Now, if you have questions we would like you to
raise your hand and Leslie and Jeff and some of the other folks helping here
will have you come down here to the microphone. When you get to here we would like you to tell us your
name and the school that you're with. And then every once in a while we'll check with folks on
the WebCast to see if there is questions coming in there. >> I'm Rita from Baldwin school. I have a question about what year you think all this
technology would happen? >> What year might all of this technology happen? Some of this technology is closer than others, obviously. The Boeing airplane I showed is going to be available in
probably five years or so. The hyper sonic airplane. We've tested that now in small models. The computerized airplane is probably a few years away. Maybe 15 or 20 years. But parts of it are going to be in the next generation of
business airplanes. >> What's the fastest airplane? >> Oh, boy, the fastest airplane? Well, one of the fastest airplanes that's flying today is
one of these models right here, this black one right here. And that airplane flies at about Mach 3 or so. The hyper sonic airplanes there we've flown models of
that at mach7. >> How many different kind of airplanes are there? >> Oh, wow, you ask hard questions here. Boy, there must be hundreds. There are lots of different kinds of airplanes. And those airplanes, most of them are designed for
different purposes so there are -- I couldn't guess. There are hundreds of them. >> Thanks. >> My name is SOFIE. I go to J.L.S. If there are planes that are flying at like the speed of
sound, how would you like schedule their arrival time when they're going so
fast? >> Well, that's a really good question. One of the problems that we're working on now in air
traffic management, the technology we're developing, is the ability to manage
airplanes that fly at different speeds. Right now most airplanes are required to fly at about the
same speed. But if we have very fast airplanes mixed in with slower
ones then managing that traffic and assuring the schedules are kept is a big
problem we're working on. Good question. >> Hold on just for a minute we're going to take a
question now from the WebCast and we'll come back to you. Stay right here. >> Hi, Bob. We have a question here. Let me see if I can figure out the name. I'm sorry, there is no name. What is your favorite aircraft to fly or fly in? >> Oh, what is my favorite aircraft to fly or fly
in? I'm a pilot and I fly my own airplane. It's one of the airplanes that I love to fly in, a
Beechcraft. But, let's see, I happen to like -- maybe I'm partial but
I happen to like Boeing airplanes and a big competitor for Boeing is -- who is
it? Airbus. Thank you very much. My mind went away there for a minute. And you've probably -- those of you have flown very much
have probably flown in both those kinds of airplanes. The airplane I like the most although I've never been
able to fly it is called a T-38. A trainer, a military trainer airplane and it is in my
mind the most beautiful airplane in the world. >> My name is Jackie. In the future do you think that the technology will
change so that launching a space shuttle easier? >> Yes, absolutely. One of the questions earlier asked things about fastest
airplanes and those kinds of questions. Well, I forgot that there are space shuttles there. Of course they're very fast but it is a little bit
different condition. But yes, in the future NASA will be leading the way in
developing vehicles that will leave from the space station and go into outer
space, yes. >> My name is Josh. >> Okay. Cindy asks, were you ever tempted to give up, especially
with not a lot of support from your family? What was the hardest thing you had to accomplish to get
where you are today? >> What was the hardest thing? Well, first of all I will tell you that yes, when I left
high school and went to college, not all of my family thought it was the
smartest thing that I could do. But I tell you, I thought it was so I did it. What was the last part of that question? >> The hardest thing you had to accomplish to get
where you are today. >> The hardest thing. I'll tell you what. The hardest thing I had to accomplish was probably, in
all, the tests that I had to take in school. And that's hard and I'm sure you guys think it's hard as
well. And -- but they're important because that's how we know
that you've learned what you need to know. >> My name is Josh. I want to know your estimate on how much the computerized
plane would cost. >> Well, I'll tell you that's a hard question to
answer. The goals for that kind of an airplane are so that it
will cost -- these will sound like big money and it is, will cost -- the goal is
to have it cost less than $500,000. It's a lot of money. It's about the cost of maybe a house in this area. But the hope is that the technology, as it gets
developed, will reduce in cost. Much like computers have over the years. And so it is not inexpensive. It will take quite an investment. That's why those airplanes may not be owned specifically
by individual people, but rather by a company like hertz rent a plane that you
go take that airplane for the trip. >> Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Kenny. I'm from Baldwin school. My question is do you think it would be possible for
humans to land on Mars in the near future? >> I'll tell you what, I think you're the one that
will answer that question. I think in the future whether we go to Mars or not is
going to be developed by the people in this -- in this audience. And my guess is we're going to go there, but I can't tell
you when. We have a question from the web? >> Yes, I do. I have a question, I believe it's from L.A. Whether it's the city or a person I'm not sure. But it says how did the Wright brothers know how to build
the wind tunnel? >> Good question. Next time I see them, I'll ask them. I don't know how they knew. There is no way I can know other than they had a very
intuitive feel for what kinds of things were needed to be done in order to
answer the questions that they had. But you're right. It's not obvious that moving a wing through the air or
moving the air past a wing is the same thing. But the Wright brothers could see that it was. >> Actually, for students who would like to, we
will be having a chat with the Wright brothers on the 17th and so check the
calendar at quest.NASA.GOV/calendar and you can chat with the Wright brothers. >> Maybe I'll get online on learn something, okay. >> I'm Thomas. My question is, about how many airplanes did NASA build
and about how many do you think NASA will build more in the future? >> How many airplanes has NASA built? NASA does a couple of different kinds of things with
airplanes. There are some airplanes called experimental airplanes
that is the series of X planes that we have built. The one you saw here, the hyper X is X43, pretty much a
series of numbers so that means we've built approximately 43 of those
experimental airplanes. In addition to that we buy airplanes and we modify them
to change them to study specific things. And there have been a number of those. So we -- we've built quite a few airplanes we've done
experiments on. >> Hi My name is Diane. I want to know who is the youngest person that's ever
flown in space? Who is the youngest person that has ever flown in space? >> Youngest person? Boy, I don't know the answer to that. If anybody does here. I tell you what, we're finding out because we want to
know who you are and we'll find the answer and we'll find you this afternoon
and we'll tell you because I don't know the answer. I think it was just recently but I can't remember. Good question. >> My name is MATAL from JLS. I want to know how many airplanes and space ships were
there built in between from the first plane and the latest invention? >> How many airplanes? Well, it's thousands of airplanes that have been built. It would be hard for me to guess. Boy, I just don't know. Boeing has built several thousand 737's and several --
and well into the thousands 757's and 767's. I would have to make a guess there has probably been, oh,
probably 10,000 passenger airplanes built. And light airplanes I can tell you that in 1979 there
were 17,000 light airplanes built in that one year. So there are a lot of airplanes. >> Let's take another question from the web. >> Okay. Question here says is NASA building a new shuttle? >> NASA has decided at this time to extend the life
of the shuttle fleet that we have. And I'm not -- I'm not aware of us building another
shuttle aircraft. Rather, we're upgrading the ones we have and we're
focusing on developing the next generation of space transportation system. It's called an orbital space plane and you'll see pictures
of that that will come out in the press. >> I'm Allen. Will there ever be another solar glider that will be
piloted from the actual glider? >> Well, not powered from it but like it, yeah,
there sure will be. There are companies now that are -- that are building
remotely-piloted vehicles or UAV's like that. Some of which are solar powered and their intention is to
replace satellites for communication systems in some instances. So you'd have an airplane at very high altitude orbiting
over a major metropolitan area so your cell phones can communicate with that. Much more efficient from a cost standpoint than a
satellite. So yes, there will be. I can assure you. >> My name is Patricia and I'm from J.L.S. middle
school. My question is how fast does the sonic cruiser go? >> How fast does it go? >> Yeah. >> Well, let's see. It flies at mach.98. Almost the speed of sound. That means it's flying at about 650 miles-per-hour or so
at sea level. And the way the atmosphere works, that means that at altitude
it would probably be flying at close to 1,000 miles-per-hour. >> My name is Emily. I'm asking how much would it be to make -- how much money
would it take to make one of these hi-tech airplanes? >> How much money? How much have you got? That's right. I'll take every dime you've got and we'll do it. We -- the way NASA works, let me just tell you, is that
all of your parents pay for me to do what I do. And they pay that through your taxes. You hear your parents talk about taxes all the time. Okay. So we're part of the federal government and the federal
government gives us money to do these things. And the development costs of some of these technologies
is quite high. And so the government here in the United States pays for
that technology development and then gives that technology to the companies
that want to use it to build airplanes. So some of the technology we've developed went to Boeing
and they are going to put that in the sonic cruiser. It takes quite a bit of money. >> Let's take another one from the web. >> Jeremy from the web asks, where do you see NASA
flight technology in ten years? >> Where do I see it? Well, I think that in the next ten years from a NASA
standpoint, some of these airplanes that you saw here we're going to be flying. I think some of the technologies for that computerized
airplane that we showed, we'll be flying in the next ten years. We're going to show that that technology is possible. And then as I answered in the previous question, then we
take that technology and we offer that to anybody, any company that wants to
come and take that technology and build it into their airplanes and it is up to
them to decide how much that airplane is going to cost. >> I'm Jessica. And I was wondering if there is a computer as hi-tech as
the one in that movie that can change the airplane's course? >> The computer as what? >> As hi-tech. >> As hi-tech. Yeah. As a matter of fact, we have several computers here,
right here, that are actually more hi-tech than a computer that would be
required for that. The challenge in that airplane is to hook the computer to
all of the things that have to be -- that have to be managed in the airplane. That have to be run. The computer itself, we have those computers today. We have computers that can do a lot more than that. >> I'm Phillip. My question is, how many years does it take to make each
new aircraft? >> Okay. How many years does it take to make each new aircraft? Well, there are two pieces to that that I'm going to answer
on that. One is for the kinds of airplanes that we are looking at
here today, there is a technology development piece. Because they're pretty advanced, okay? Well, that's the piece that NASA does. And that can take, oh, -- it can take up to 15, 20 years
to develop that technology. And then there is the piece of building an airplane that
a company wants to sell. And typically that process takes about five years, I
would say, on that order. >> Let's go to the web for another question. >> Okay. Dan wants to know what kinds of innovative flight
projects are you working on now? >> What am I working on now? I've been spending the last few years and anticipate
spending the next few years in the air traffic management business looking at
how we keep -- how we safely manage all of these new airplanes that we're going
to have flying in the United States. But we also, because some of these airplanes, some of
this technology is designed to make it easier to fly around the world, we can
no longer look at just managing the airplanes in this country. We have to consider how they're managed all the way
around the world. So we work with the Europeans and with the pacific rim to
make sure that we are integrated in how we manage that. So I kind of left the specific airplane business a few
years ago and I work now on managing the system of airplanes that we have to
take people places. >> My question is when did NASA begin? >> When did NASA begin? Well, NASA began back in the -- not too long after the
Wright brothers flew, actually. It was in the 19 teens somewhere in there. I can't remember the exact date. It didn't start as NASA. Back in that day, what does the S stand for in NASA? Space. The S is for space. Well, back when NASA -- what preceded NASA was started
there wasn't any space work. The Wright brothers hadn't gone quite that far so it was
called NACA. The national -- national advisory committee for
aeronautics. And this facility where we are today, Ames research
center, was built in something around 1939. That's when we started. What changed it to NASA. When NASA actually started was in 1958. Does anybody know what happened in 1958 to cause that? Yeah. >> The Russians hadn't landed on the moon but
you're right. It was the Russians. The Russians launched the first satellite called
Sputnick. It was changed to NASA at that time and we launched our
space program. Good question. >> My name is Eugene. How do pilots know where they're flying when they're in
the air? >> How do you know where you're flying? >> Yes. >> That's called navigation. There are systems now that know where you are, radar that
we use, that can see your airplane from the ground and then it tells you where
you are. But we have new technology that has just come up in the
last few years called GPS, global positioning systems. That's a satellite-based system where you have an
instrument on the airplane that listens to signals from satellites and can
figure out where you are and then it can tell you that directly. So that technology is going to become more and more
important as we look at these modern airplanes. >> Okay. I have one more from the chat room here. Jackson wants to know what is the coolest project you've
worked on for NASA? >> Probably the coolest project that I worked on in
terms of an airplane was the first project that I worked on when I came to
Ames, which is a vertical takeoff transport airplane actually being built by a
German company and it had ten engines on it and it was kind of an ugly-looking
airplane but it could lift like a minivan straight up in the air and then fly
forward at about 300 miles-per-hour. Great airplane. >> My name is Hannah. My question is what is the biggest airplane and what is
the smallest airplane? >> The biggest airplane -- the biggest airplane
today flying -- well, I'll give you two categories. The biggest passenger airplane flying is, I think it's
still the 747. The large versions of the 747. Airbus is designing a bigger airplane than that but it is
not yet flying. But the military has -- military airplanes are bigger and
there is a Russian airplane that's the biggest cargo airplane in the world. If you live around here you might see one land here. It comes in and visits Lockheed across the way every once
in a while. The biggest one the U.S. has is the C-5. A big cargo airplane. Okay. >> Let's -- students and teachers let's thank Mr.Jacobsen
-- I thank you for being so attentive. When we leave in a few minutes we'll exit from the front
and the folks in the front will be able to go out the sides here. Everybody else above go out the doors you came in. Please stay with your group. Teachers, if you need help see any of the organizers. We'll see you down at Aero village in a few minutes. |
||
|
|
|
