For release April 11, 2006
NASA ASSOCIATE HEAD OF AERONAUTICS RESEARCH EXPECTS STRONGER
PARTNERING WITH UNIVERSITIES
Dr. Lisa Porter, NASA’s new deputy administrator for aeronautics,
sees a “strengthening” of partnerships with universities and a
continued focus on “frontiers of flight,” she said during her first
visit to Arnold Engineering Development Center.
In fact, partnering – or as AEDC Commander Brig Gen. David Stringer
put it: “Building teams that make sense” – in an effort to “get the
most bang for the buck” was the central theme espoused by Porter,
Stringer, and Dr. Mark Lewis, U.S. Air Force’s chief scientist, in a
press conference at AEDC April 6.
Porter sees universities facing more opportunities for faculty and
graduate students to participate as “true partners in NASA’s cutting
edge research.” She says “strategic decisions” will be made to
advance NASA’s aeronautics testing program, which will emphasize
“working with national partners.”
One objective in visiting AEDC was to evaluate opportunities for
team work with the center, Porter said. She recently was quoted that
a major goal was to “re-establish dedication to mastery of core
competencies of aeronautics in subsonic (rotary and fixed wing)
supersonic and hypersonic flight.”
“The American system is cooperation,” Stringer said. “We want to
make this facility as friendly as the rules allow. There is no
surcharge for NASA to test here. It is best if we cooperate with
each other.”
In recent months, Porter has emphasized the importance of
maintaining wind tunnel facilities, and both Stringer and Lewis
emphasized the value of computational modeling as well as wind
tunnels.
“Computational modeling will never replace wind tunnels,” Lewis
said. “Computer modeling alone doesn’t solve the problems; they give
us only approximations. We need both computers and wind tunnels to
solve our problems.”
Stringer agreed, pointing out that simulation “has done some great
things” including showing “how air is supposed to behave.” He said
Dr. Edward Kraft, AEDC technical advisor, is working with Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, UT Chattanooga, UTSI, and others on behalf of
computational modeling, “but you have to know the science first.”
Neither modeling nor wind tunnels totally represent “real life,”
Stringer said, but “both reduce the rate of failures before
full-scale testing starts.”
Porter and Lewis noted the importance of considering the nation’s
wind tunnels and propulsion test facilities as a single set of
resources regardless of whether owned by NASA or the Department of
Defense.
“AEDC is one of our crown jewels as far as the facilities are
concerned and as a knowledge base,” Lewis said, adding that an
inventory of testing capabilities is being compiled to ensure that
the most effective test facility is used.
Writer: Weldon Payne (931) 393-7222
wpayne@utsi.edu
