Planes of the future will have unconventional shapes

Music Charles F. Bolden Jr.: This is our challenge: to shape the future in aeronautics. Over the past 70 years or so, air travel has become one of the world's safest modes of transportation and a vital part of the world economy. But even with this tremendous progress, new challenges continue to surface. It is no secret that our airports and our airplanes are getting more and more crowded. In the United States, 60 certified domestic carriers operate more than 28,000 flights a day. Last year alone, they moved more than 700 million passengers, a number that is forecast to exceed 1.2 billion by 2030. Here is what the sky overhead looks like right now and that is real. That looks like a traffic jam to me. Just imagine what it will look like 20 years from now with almost double the demand. And imagine the demands on air traffic controllers. Our aging air traffic control systems need new capabilities, new technologies, and new ways of looking at the big picture. As we are doing in spaceflight, we are looking at where we want to be, not just a few years down the road, but decades from now. And we are making decisions about what we need to do today to get there. Today, commercial aviation provides jobs for nearly one million Americans. The aerospace manufacturing industry provides the nation with a $60 billion trade surplus, but the capacity of our system to operate the way we do now and the increased traffic's toll on the environment and our system's own infrastructure are factors we need to address. We need to make some changes both in the design of aircraft and in the way they transit through our skies, to not only maintain but improve safety and efficiency. Yes, I am going to use a word that has become integral to my vocabulary. We are going to have to innovate. NASA Aeronautics is finding answers to the challenges we face. For decades, NASA has worked to improve the performance, efficiency and safety of our aviation system. Nearly every airplane that exists today uses technology made possible in part by NASA research. We are present in the innovative aircraft themselves and the air traffic management systems that help make them safe and efficient. When it comes to NASA's contributions to environmentally friendly aviation, the list of technologies we have developed that are in use today is long and comprehensive. The most recent example is the Chevron Nozzle. I was talking to my Boeing friends about this. It is similar--this is similar to the ones that we will be flying on Boeing's new 787 and 747-8 airplanes. For those of you who may not know what it does, it is an alloy that has a memory just as the name implies and it knows that if I was at this altitude and it was this temperature yesterday, and I got the best efficiency by squeezing down myself to be this size and let the airflow come out like this, that is good. And so, as the airplane climbs or descends, the memory alloy actually makes the nozzle move around such that we get the best efficiency out of it, so did I get that close, alright? Boeing gas was that close, huh? That is okay? You are going to send me some notes and okay. You all get it. We will get it right, alright? But that is my way of explaining it and I think it is pretty good. We already see the slot two shapes at the back of the engine on the aircraft that I just talked about and they reduce engine noise significantly without penalizing engine performance. And as I said before, they are a NASA innovation. In the not too distant future, thanks to NASA, you may be able to live near an airport and not suffer the whine of jet engines revving up for takeoff when you are trying to sleep. Nuisance noise near major metropolitan airports is seen as one of the greatest hindrances to the future growth of the aviation system. So, the advent of Chevron Nozzles like this is especially timely. Another NASA innovation, the little upturn ends of the wings you see here came about when the environmental awareness and the energy shortages of the 70's prompted demands to save fuel and stop polluting. Winglets reduce drag and fuel consumption and most of the airlines today have them in service. We want to show that it is possible to reduce aircraft fuel consumption, emissions and noise simultaneously. Each of these is a lofty goal in itself. We are working on demonstrating the feasibility of technologies that would enable aircraft to burn 33 percent less fuel than today's most efficient models. We hope to make a lot more progress on those technologies within the next five years. With help from aircraft technology and air traffic management techniques developed by NASA, harmful carbon emissions from airplanes could level off and begin to dissipate in just ten year's time. Our goals are ambitious. All the more so when tackled together, but I am confident they are achievable. Enabled by NASA research, U.S. companies will begin designing airplanes with unconventional shapes and building them with new lightweight composite materials and structures to increase lift, reduce drag, and lessen the strain on engines.

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