Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there we went, and welcome to Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: the podcast that looks at the future and says I said, doctor,
Speaker 1: Mr m D. Can't you tell me what's ailing me?
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Bulkabon, and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And for the second time this week, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: touching on an aviation related theme. Yeah, we apparently have
Speaker 1: airplanes on the brain. Yeah. So have you all been
Speaker 1: on an airplane lately? Uh? Yeah, actually not long ago
Speaker 1: in May? Yeah, for me, it was earlier this month.
Speaker 1: Where did you fly Outer Banks? Well, technically I flew
Speaker 1: into Norfolk, Virginia. Then we rented a car and went
Speaker 1: to the Outer Banks. Nice. Yeah, sunny, sunny Fort Lauderdale.
Speaker 1: I haven't been on a plane since last year. I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering. Was there anything remarkable lead different in your
Speaker 1: experience of flying as far as the actual like technology
Speaker 1: of flight was concerned when you went on that flight
Speaker 1: compared to the one before it. Uh nope, nope, not yeah,
Speaker 1: not for me either. I Mean the most remarkable thing
Speaker 1: was that Delta had once again updated their safety video,
Speaker 1: which now includes Oh no, no, actually, I really like
Speaker 1: I'm very fond of the kind of cheesy Delta safety videos.
Speaker 1: I'm I really like them. They started with the the
Speaker 1: flight attendant who would would wag her finger, right, so
Speaker 1: they so she kind of started it off, and then
Speaker 1: they sort of took that ball and ran with it.
Speaker 1: Sort of took an inspiration from some of the commercials
Speaker 1: out there that have been very silly. The reason why
Speaker 1: I even asked this, you know, I've gotten off in
Speaker 1: this weird tangent, is that I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: a recent news item about the possibility that aviation could
Speaker 1: see some rap bid changes in technology and and uh
Speaker 1: engineering due to a project at NASA. Huh. Now, we've
Speaker 1: talked about the possibilities in the future of aviation on
Speaker 1: the podcast before, but yeah, today we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about a specific call for R and D. Yeah, yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: we have talked also about NASA having some pretty you know,
Speaker 1: far out there R and D branches already. There's of
Speaker 1: course Eagle Works, right, which is associated with the M drive,
Speaker 1: which we discussed in our episode. I think it was
Speaker 1: probably called the M drive, or probably had the word
Speaker 1: m drive in there. You can look it up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're all about they're all about long shot propulsion
Speaker 1: physics ideas that probably won't work, but if they do work,
Speaker 1: it would be awesome. And and it's there specifically put
Speaker 1: together to say, hey, you know, let's go on the
Speaker 1: fringe for this stuff, because if it works, it's the
Speaker 1: benefits are outstanding. And if it doesn't, well then maybe
Speaker 1: we'll learn stuff in the process. It's kind only playing
Speaker 1: the lottery. You're not likely to win, but if you
Speaker 1: do awesome, right exactly, I assume that's the way you
Speaker 1: were thinking of either and either way you might learn,
Speaker 1: and either way you might learn something about math in
Speaker 1: the processes you and I hope learned something about math.
Speaker 1: So the one we're going to talk about now is
Speaker 1: is a project called the Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project or
Speaker 1: c a S. All right, because Eagle Works is certainly
Speaker 1: not the only branch of NASA that does research and development,
Speaker 1: and it's not even the only one that does, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty far out their ideas. NASA has several areas, several
Speaker 1: several divisions or projects that are all about uh inspiring
Speaker 1: and welcoming some revolutionary approaches to technology to really advance aeronautics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we often forget what that first A and NASA stands for.
Speaker 1: We tend to think of NASA as the space organization,
Speaker 1: and you know, space is probably cooler than airplanes, so
Speaker 1: it's easier to remember. But yeah, they deal with aeronautics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so c A s that that Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project
Speaker 1: I just mentioned. Is itself a branch of the Transformative
Speaker 1: Aeronautics Concepts Program or t A c P within NASA. Yes,
Speaker 1: so the t A c P is its purposes to
Speaker 1: cultivate multidisciplinary revolutionary concepts to enable aviation transformation. That's straight
Speaker 1: from their web page over at NASA. And in other words,
Speaker 1: it's all about experimentation and rapid development of technologies that
Speaker 1: could advance our aeronautics technology. Now, the t A c
Speaker 1: P is itself a branch of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission
Speaker 1: Directorate or Armed but not Dangerous But not dangerous, I
Speaker 1: guess you know aeronautics. I guess there's an element of
Speaker 1: danger that comes with the territory. This director. It recognizes
Speaker 1: the impacts that aviation has on the economy and infrastructure
Speaker 1: of our nation and aims to develop ever more efficient
Speaker 1: aviation technology. You know, like cheaper, better, stronger, faster, more green.
Speaker 1: Isn't that a daft punk thing? Cheaper, better, stronger, faster,
Speaker 1: more green thing must speak think of a different song.
Speaker 1: It's just a joke. Better, faster, strong, never mind, I understand. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for you to proceed. I see you're allowed,
Speaker 1: but I can't do it. So there are three programs
Speaker 1: encompassed by the T A c P. That's a C
Speaker 1: A S which we're talking about today, along with Transformational
Speaker 1: Tools and Technologies or T T T, which is a
Speaker 1: software development program and Leading Edge Arrow research for NASA,
Speaker 1: or LEARN, which is a program that awards grants to
Speaker 1: external universities in law for aeronautics research. We will talk
Speaker 1: more about those later, ye, just to give a kind
Speaker 1: of wrap up to the whole Like what is this
Speaker 1: whole section of NASA all about? Okay, but what's the
Speaker 1: deal with C A S. Well, they're dedicated to conducting
Speaker 1: short duration activities to establish early stage concepts and technology
Speaker 1: feasibility for high potential solutions. Those are not my words,
Speaker 1: those are NASA's words, that sounds like a mission statement.
Speaker 1: What does that actually mean? Well, it's it's all about
Speaker 1: this idea of let's let's try and invest in projects
Speaker 1: that have the potential to advance aeronautics dramatically, um even
Speaker 1: if we aren't completely convinced that they will succeed. Right,
Speaker 1: it's asking, it's taking projects from within NASA, carried out
Speaker 1: by NASA employees that are these weird experimental, high risk,
Speaker 1: high reward kind of things, right, and so they the
Speaker 1: teams at c A S. Whenever they're working on a project,
Speaker 1: they're specifically supposed to conduct experiments, they're supposed to learn
Speaker 1: from their failures, and supposed to be an environment where
Speaker 1: you can take these these risks, not knowing if it's
Speaker 1: going to succeed or fail, and there's not repercussions. If
Speaker 1: you do fail, you're just expected to learn from those failures,
Speaker 1: and hopefully you would you would be able to learn
Speaker 1: ways of carrying out the experiment successfully. But if it
Speaker 1: turns out there is no way of succeeding, you're still
Speaker 1: going to learn in the process. You're also supposed to
Speaker 1: continue conducting those experiments and you repeat this until you
Speaker 1: reach the end of the research cycle, which maybe two
Speaker 1: to two and a half years, and at that point, uh,
Speaker 1: the team's performance and work is reviewed to determine if
Speaker 1: the solutions that were developed by the team actually address
Speaker 1: the issue and meet the pre established goals for that project.
Speaker 1: Whatever they might be. Now they have to be. They don't.
Speaker 1: It's not that they have to work, just that they
Speaker 1: have to work. They do. But beyond having to work,
Speaker 1: they have to be feasible ideas, so in other words,
Speaker 1: like real world feasible, like not like theoretically right right
Speaker 1: where you're like laboratory feasible Exactly. It can't be something
Speaker 1: where in the lab if we pour in four cities
Speaker 1: worth of electricity into this thing, then we can get
Speaker 1: it to float an inch off the ground. That's not
Speaker 1: a success. Even if you achieve we open a black
Speaker 1: hole inside the engine and it goes really far, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we go to a totally different place. Uh No, that
Speaker 1: that would not. That would also not because there's a
Speaker 1: success that would be catastrophic. So the promising solutions, the
Speaker 1: ones that NASA feels, you know, the various people who
Speaker 1: are reviewing these projects, the ones that they feel are
Speaker 1: feasible and beneficial, would then be pursued by moving that
Speaker 1: project over to a different arm of NASA or a
Speaker 1: direct transfer of knowledge to the aviation community to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we did this experiment where we designed an air craft
Speaker 1: wing in this way and found that it generates much
Speaker 1: more left in this manner, We're giving that information out
Speaker 1: to everybody so that everyone can benefit from it. That's
Speaker 1: the idea behind it. So um it's also very similar
Speaker 1: to what we've set on Forward Thinking many many times,
Speaker 1: the idea that it's all right if you pursue a
Speaker 1: line of research and you ultimately find that it's not
Speaker 1: viable because you learn that, you learn that it's not viable,
Speaker 1: and you maybe even learn why and can apply that
Speaker 1: to future projects which might become feasible. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: impossible to anticipate everything that you will learn. Whenever you
Speaker 1: are pursuing any given line of research, right, you might
Speaker 1: learn something that is not germane to the specific goal
Speaker 1: that you have been assigned, but could be very interesting
Speaker 1: for other applications. So there there's real value to research,
Speaker 1: and that's something that NASA is really promoting within the
Speaker 1: organization itself, and it's something that we on Forward Thinking
Speaker 1: have promoted quite a few times, so specifically we wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about. There was an article, several articles actually,
Speaker 1: it was reported all over the science news sphere that
Speaker 1: the c A S Project was entertaining six wild aviation
Speaker 1: ideas well. First of all, each team there were several
Speaker 1: things that had a competition. It was a competition. It
Speaker 1: was actually, uh, they were inviting people to pitch ideas
Speaker 1: to the c A S Project. So they were like,
Speaker 1: bring us your weirdest ideas for how to make airplanes
Speaker 1: much better. Kind of They had a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a guideline than that, but though not by a
Speaker 1: whole lot. They they told each team they would have
Speaker 1: to explain their idea and approach and uh, what they
Speaker 1: were going to do. They would have to justify it
Speaker 1: to a panel made up of NASA managers. So it
Speaker 1: almost comes across like one of those shows like Shark
Speaker 1: Tank where the team, you know, an entrepreneur has to
Speaker 1: has to present their business model and try and defend
Speaker 1: it from experts who are either enchanted by it or
Speaker 1: just you know, they're perplexed, they don't know what or
Speaker 1: or they just aren't impressed at all. Yeah, we should
Speaker 1: make airplanes. They doublest food drugs. Yeah, that would that
Speaker 1: would probably uh not make it through to the next round.
Speaker 1: Um So the play for themselves, Yeah, I think they've
Speaker 1: already learned that lesson from the way that airlines are
Speaker 1: handling food. Now. Every team had to have a membership
Speaker 1: made up of experts from multiple disciplines and have members
Speaker 1: from more than one NASA Aeronautics Center. There are three
Speaker 1: or four of those, as I recall, uh, And the
Speaker 1: teams had to come up with an answer, a potential
Speaker 1: answer to one of two big questions. Their their study
Speaker 1: that they want to conduct is supposed to address one
Speaker 1: of two big ones, the first big question, and it's
Speaker 1: an or and either or not a they have to
Speaker 1: answer both questions. Um So. The first one was can
Speaker 1: we demonstrate an aviation system with maximum efficiency and minimal
Speaker 1: environmental impact? Which can be interpreted in many different ways,
Speaker 1: and in fact, we'll see from some of the selected
Speaker 1: projects how those interpretations were made. The second one was
Speaker 1: demonstrate the feasibility for urgent medical transportation from the wilderness
Speaker 1: of Alaska to the Mayo clinic without human interaction. That's
Speaker 1: a very different kind of requirement, right, And and they
Speaker 1: specifically said, like, yes, the way we framed this was
Speaker 1: so that you would have specific parameters to work within
Speaker 1: to design your approach, but the solution would be applicable
Speaker 1: across the world and all sorts of different scenarios. They
Speaker 1: just specifically framed it in this way, just just to
Speaker 1: give you something to work towards. Was the idea, Not
Speaker 1: that we're planning on having a lot of medical disasters
Speaker 1: to Alaska that need to go to Mayo Clinic. No, sure,
Speaker 1: it seems kind of like the Darker Robotics challenge, right.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a specific scenario, but it's designed so
Speaker 1: that you can test what can be done and applied
Speaker 1: to many scenarios. It's very apt. Yes, that's exactly right. So,
Speaker 1: out of the seventeen teams that pitched ideas, six were
Speaker 1: selected for study. They would be the wild and or
Speaker 1: crazy ideas we have mentioned before, and the study cycle
Speaker 1: will last between two and two and a half years,
Speaker 1: depending upon the individual studies. And here are the six. Okay,
Speaker 1: the first one, Yeah, there's a problem with electric vehicles.
Speaker 1: They got batteries. Batteries terrible, They're gigantic, they're big, they
Speaker 1: take up a lot of space, and they they contribute weight. Yeah, aircraft,
Speaker 1: by the way, weight not something you want to add
Speaker 1: to an aircraft if you can help it, because then
Speaker 1: you need more energy to keep the aircraft aloft. And
Speaker 1: if you're using more energy, then it's not so green now,
Speaker 1: is it. Or maybe you have decreased the amount of
Speaker 1: time it can spend in the air and perhaps it's
Speaker 1: not a practical solution. Need a bigger battery, which makes
Speaker 1: you need to use more energy, which makes you need
Speaker 1: a bigger battery. Which. Yeah, So we when we talked
Speaker 1: about the solar powered aircraft and how it's it's designed. Um,
Speaker 1: the one that's slowly making its way around the world.
Speaker 1: It uh you know, that was the solar Impulse to
Speaker 1: solar impulse to it. Their design was such that they
Speaker 1: were trying to maximize the effectiveness of batteries while minimizing
Speaker 1: their weight because obviously, if you're using electricity to propel
Speaker 1: your your aircraft, um, you want to cut back on
Speaker 1: that weight as much as you can. So how can
Speaker 1: you do that? Well, the first one we're talking about
Speaker 1: is the Multi Functional Structures with Energy Storage project, which
Speaker 1: is pretty catchy. They're actually looking at making batteries, so
Speaker 1: that the batteries themselves form the shape of the vehicle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're the that's the casing. It's the actual
Speaker 1: material that thee Yeah. So basically the plane is the battery.
Speaker 1: To have all this like structural material there and then
Speaker 1: put a battery in it, you just have the structure
Speaker 1: of the plane and be a battery. Right. The walls
Speaker 1: of the structure are our batteries. They're not. The batteries
Speaker 1: aren't added to an already existing infrastructure. They are the infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Which is really a cool idea. It's not unique to
Speaker 1: the aeronautics industry. In fact, the automotive industry has been
Speaker 1: looking at this where Yeah, I've read about battery designs
Speaker 1: for electric vehicles that would work this way. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: would be incorporated in the roof of the car or
Speaker 1: the walls of the car, so that you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have this large space. It also adds the carrying capacity,
Speaker 1: you know, to the vehicle where you can you can
Speaker 1: use the space that would have been you know, filled
Speaker 1: up with batteries to hold other stuff. Now, I remember
Speaker 1: one problem that went along with this when I was
Speaker 1: reading about it in cars was that it sort of
Speaker 1: made it a problem if you have a collision, right, right,
Speaker 1: I would I would imagine that would be a difficult
Speaker 1: point of of when the body of the thing can
Speaker 1: catch directly on fire. Usually the body of vehicles is
Speaker 1: made specifically to not catch on fire, but batteries are
Speaker 1: pretty notoriously flammable. Yeah, it's it seems like it would
Speaker 1: also be a problem just that you would hurt the
Speaker 1: reusability of the car and its recoverability from even the
Speaker 1: small accident if just like damaging you know, one of
Speaker 1: the sides of the car or something, actually damage the
Speaker 1: power source. Yeah, you would probably have to have it replaced.
Speaker 1: It would make it. It would make the maintenance or
Speaker 1: at least the repairs much more expensive potentially anyway. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure those will be some of the things
Speaker 1: that the study will have to look at too to
Speaker 1: measure that risk versus payoff. Like, yes, it makes sense,
Speaker 1: does it. That's part of the real world challenge, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's an interesting question. Other teams are also looking
Speaker 1: at how the batteries and motors of of these systems
Speaker 1: can be improved. Yeah. The high voltage hybrid electric propulsion
Speaker 1: system is one of number two. This is number two,
Speaker 1: and they are looking at two different things. One is
Speaker 1: they were looking at a way of cutting back on
Speaker 1: that expense of if your power transmission system is damaged,
Speaker 1: how can you how can you address that? So they're
Speaker 1: looking at self healing materials their high voltage system. This
Speaker 1: is so delightful to me. It's the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that that the insulation of their electrical systems would be
Speaker 1: made of stuff if they can find such stuff that that,
Speaker 1: upon receiving damage, would be prompted to like like like
Speaker 1: the the damage that it receives in the form of
Speaker 1: physical or electric uh punch would cause it to heal
Speaker 1: over that damage. Essentially, the electricity passing through this the
Speaker 1: chemicals that are bonded to that insulation would prompt it
Speaker 1: to to expand and close those wounds. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: cool thing about this is that it would really cut
Speaker 1: back on maintenance costs. It would also allow the aircraft
Speaker 1: to automatically address any sort of emergency situation that involved
Speaker 1: the damage to the power system without requiring an emergency landing.
Speaker 1: It would do it all automatically and there's no like,
Speaker 1: there's no switch to throw or anything. It's because of
Speaker 1: the chemical It's material science, right, it's chemistry, material science
Speaker 1: that uh that allowed this to happen. At least that's
Speaker 1: what they're hoping to to study and and develop. Keep
Speaker 1: in mind, these are all proposals. This is not stuff
Speaker 1: that necessarily exists right now. Concept. Yeah. So the second
Speaker 1: part of their approach is that, uh, they want to
Speaker 1: explore ways to make the electric system practical for aircraft.
Speaker 1: So they want to make electrical systems that will have
Speaker 1: a reasonable size and weight, very similar to the battery issue,
Speaker 1: not just batteries, but the electric motors, all the all
Speaker 1: the infrastructure that would come with an electrical power system
Speaker 1: in order to make it feasible, and they to explore
Speaker 1: options in high voltage. Variable frequency drives and v f
Speaker 1: d s are sort of control systems for engines. They
Speaker 1: can really save energy by changing an engine speed and
Speaker 1: torque as needed, kind of on the fly, literally on
Speaker 1: the fly in this case, because airplanes. Uh sorry, anyway,
Speaker 1: I ever apologize for a pun Embrace them? Oh No,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't like embracing them. They're all sticky.
Speaker 1: The dark side. Um vfd s are currently used in
Speaker 1: industrial manufacturing and ships. But but there are these big, old,
Speaker 1: clunky mechanical things controlled by big old clunky computers, and
Speaker 1: so they're they're not as of yet practical for airplanes.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited to see what this project winds up
Speaker 1: looking at. Yeah, that that should also be interesting. And
Speaker 1: remember all of these have the potential to revolutionize aeronautics
Speaker 1: in some way or another, right, that's the whole reason
Speaker 1: why they were selected. Number three is Mission Adaptive Digital
Speaker 1: Composite Aerostructure Technologies, And this is one of the ones
Speaker 1: that I'm really excited about. It's a material science one
Speaker 1: and super cool stuff so one. This is another kind
Speaker 1: of two parter um. They want to combine two different
Speaker 1: lines of research into a new approach, and in aeronautics,
Speaker 1: one of those is a material science in the form
Speaker 1: of composite materials. And now composite materials can be incredibly
Speaker 1: light and incredibly strong. We have talked about compositive composite
Speaker 1: materials on this show before. Yeah. For example, if you
Speaker 1: wanted to create an actually feasible flying car, one of
Speaker 1: the things we've talked about is that you might be
Speaker 1: able to redesign the cars structure with lightweight composite materials.
Speaker 1: So that it might be edging closer to reasonability that
Speaker 1: this could take off and land with some kind of
Speaker 1: electric motor, right, because you're lowering the weight, but you're
Speaker 1: not compromising the strength of the structure. Now, the second
Speaker 1: line of research that they want to combine with that
Speaker 1: first one is looking at materials that would be capable
Speaker 1: of changing their shape to adapt to flight conditions. So
Speaker 1: this would be like and there have been aircraft that
Speaker 1: can do this where they can they have wings that
Speaker 1: can change shape during flight in order to give um
Speaker 1: different effects, like to increase or reduce drag. This is
Speaker 1: in large part to reduce the need for things like
Speaker 1: flaps on an aircraft, so it actually can reduce weight,
Speaker 1: it can reduce complexity of the aircraft a fewere little
Speaker 1: mechanical bits to get broken. Yeah, So if you could
Speaker 1: do both, if you could create a composite material that
Speaker 1: also had this shape changing adaptation technology built into it,
Speaker 1: then you could have an aircraft that is able to
Speaker 1: be very effective and much greener because it's it's lighter,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't need um as much power to remain aloft,
Speaker 1: whether that's electric or fuel or whatever. Um and it
Speaker 1: has fewer parts so it doesn't have to it doesn't
Speaker 1: need as much main's it's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: those are all of the kind of hardware studies that
Speaker 1: are going on. The last three are more on the
Speaker 1: software end, right. So the first one is the autonomy
Speaker 1: operating system for u A v s. And we've seen
Speaker 1: autonomous u a v s. They're pretty nifty, you know,
Speaker 1: the ones that can follow simple instructions. A lot of
Speaker 1: u a v s are under direct human control, it's
Speaker 1: a remote control, but some are autonomously operated. But in
Speaker 1: general U a v s are not great at reacting
Speaker 1: to changing dynamic situations. I know I'm being redundant there,
Speaker 1: but still they're not being They're not able to react
Speaker 1: the way a human pilot can. Sure. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: this is the reason we don't just have autonomous airplanes
Speaker 1: pretty much, right, I Mean, we have autopilot that works
Speaker 1: just fine, but you want a human pilot there who
Speaker 1: can react if something goes wrong, right, right, So you know,
Speaker 1: if you command a a U a V to travel
Speaker 1: from point A to point B and has a pre
Speaker 1: programmed flight path and everything is fine, then as long
Speaker 1: as everything's working properly on the U A V you
Speaker 1: have a reasonable expectation that's going to arrive at point B. Again,
Speaker 1: also assuming that has enough energy to get there. You know,
Speaker 1: all those assumptions aside. It should get to its destination.
Speaker 1: But if conditions change, the U A V may not
Speaker 1: be able to detect it, or if it can detect
Speaker 1: it, it it may not be able to react to it.
Speaker 1: So something like whether yeah, sure, sure if there's a
Speaker 1: thunderstorm that was unexpected in the area and the U
Speaker 1: A V needs to change course, yeah, exactly, or that
Speaker 1: there is what if a monkey jumps out of the
Speaker 1: top of a tree right after it takes off, grabs
Speaker 1: hold of the U A V and then is holding on.
Speaker 1: That's could happen. What if? What if what if the
Speaker 1: U A V? What if a flock of birds flies
Speaker 1: in the U A V's path? I mean, there are
Speaker 1: lots of different situations that could potentially have What if
Speaker 1: a flock of monkeys flies you know, actually was the
Speaker 1: banded flock of seagulls is playing while the V I
Speaker 1: think runs run so far away? I think a flock
Speaker 1: of birds is what happened to that that aircraft that
Speaker 1: had to land in the Hudson Rivers after Captain Selley, Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: is what happened. So, and there was a case where
Speaker 1: you really needed a human pilot who knew what to
Speaker 1: do when something went wrong, everyone lauded the pilot's efforts
Speaker 1: to to land the plane or to crash land the
Speaker 1: plane safely. UM, same sort of thing here. The u
Speaker 1: a V s generally lack the ability to make these
Speaker 1: kind of assessments and and change plans spontaneously. They're very
Speaker 1: good at following specific instructions and and following a simple
Speaker 1: series of steps because because their robots, that's what that's
Speaker 1: what robots do. But creating an AI that allows them
Speaker 1: the ability to to change in changing conditions is something
Speaker 1: that this project would specifically be exploring. So they'll be
Speaker 1: looking into recent developments of AI and seeing how to
Speaker 1: apply them so that a ua V would be able
Speaker 1: to do an emergency medical lift from Alaska and fly
Speaker 1: to the Mayo clinic even if conditions are not stable
Speaker 1: between the two. So that's that's pretty cool. The next
Speaker 1: one is learn to fly. Now, this study is all
Speaker 1: about looking into the possibility of getting rid of that
Speaker 1: pesky testing phase that we have with aircraft. UM. This
Speaker 1: may be more of an industry problem. Yeah, this one,
Speaker 1: This one is a little this one is a little
Speaker 1: weird for me to think of because I don't know
Speaker 1: how I feel about this. I mean, I understand the concept,
Speaker 1: the concept being we know a lot about aeronautics. We've
Speaker 1: got a lot of experience in it. We have very
Speaker 1: sophisticated computer models that can simulate conditions. That all goes
Speaker 1: into the process when anyone is designing anything new with aeronautics,
Speaker 1: testing anything out, there's always computer simulation that precedes any prototype.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, it's a lot cheaper to to simulate building
Speaker 1: a giant metal thing that it needs to actually do
Speaker 1: it and go like, well this fly, let's just take it.
Speaker 1: Let's just throw it off a cliff and find out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially if if you find out that it does not fly.
Speaker 1: It's much cheaper to do that in a computer then
Speaker 1: to find out in real life. So the Learn to
Speaker 1: Fly program is a study to look into do we
Speaker 1: know enough at this point where if we create a design,
Speaker 1: we can run it through computer simulations to test that
Speaker 1: design thoroughly enough so that we can go straight from
Speaker 1: design to building. The whatever that change in aeronautics happens
Speaker 1: to be and implementing it directly and skipping that that
Speaker 1: ground test period where you would typically build a test
Speaker 1: vehicle and then do several test flights to make sure
Speaker 1: everything was working. The question is can we skip that
Speaker 1: step at this point? Do we know enough to be
Speaker 1: able to skip that step? That's what that study is
Speaker 1: specifically going to look at. And if that is true,
Speaker 1: if we can do that, it means that we can
Speaker 1: move into an era where there's much more rapid prototyping
Speaker 1: and development, where the things that we are designing can
Speaker 1: be incorporated without that long period of testing. But that's
Speaker 1: what the study is going to look at. What is
Speaker 1: that actually reality? Could that really be us? Are we
Speaker 1: at that point yet? Are do we just need to
Speaker 1: go poke stuff? Yeah? Yeah, exactly? And which is it's
Speaker 1: it's good to hold a study to figure that out
Speaker 1: rather than just say, hey, guys, let's try something now.
Speaker 1: The final one is kind of interesting too. It's called
Speaker 1: digital twin. I liked this idea. I thought this was interesting.
Speaker 1: So the idea here is that they would study the
Speaker 1: feasibility of building a virtual model of an airplane of
Speaker 1: a real existing airplane. Would it's twin throughout its life
Speaker 1: and then every time anything happens to the real airplane,
Speaker 1: you update the virtual airplane to match it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and also can see the effects of aging because the
Speaker 1: the virtual airplane will age the same way the actual
Speaker 1: one does. I assume you could even accelerate the aging
Speaker 1: just to see at what point is this one particular
Speaker 1: component going to need to be replaced. Sure, I think
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting and smart idea, because I've often
Speaker 1: wondered this, like, Okay, we have a lot of fairly
Speaker 1: old airplanes out there that are still in operation. This
Speaker 1: seemed to be doing fine, but how long until they're
Speaker 1: not doing fine? And how are we gonna know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: do we have to wait for something to break in
Speaker 1: order to or is it? Like is it I'm sure
Speaker 1: that there's systems out there, you know, like my car
Speaker 1: where they go you know, well, it's a hundred thousand miles.
Speaker 1: You should really take it in for a transmission job
Speaker 1: something like that. Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been
Speaker 1: informed that the check engine light has come on the
Speaker 1: control panel, So we're going to have air traffic Control
Speaker 1: come out and check that. Yeah, I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: it's true. We do first of all, aircraft have lots
Speaker 1: of different uh, notification systems on them to let you
Speaker 1: know if something is not working, but sometimes those fail.
Speaker 1: They're also regular maintenance checks obviously of aircraft, but this
Speaker 1: would be a way of getting a heads up before
Speaker 1: something becomes a problem where it needs to be repaired.
Speaker 1: Like you could say, all right, according to the model,
Speaker 1: these five components of this aircraft are going to need
Speaker 1: to be replaced next month. Let's do it now before
Speaker 1: anything gets to a point where it gets critical. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I I love this idea. I'm actually vaguely surprised that
Speaker 1: that it's not already in operation. I also just I
Speaker 1: really want them to call it the picture of Dorian
Speaker 1: gray As long as long as this graphics file exists,
Speaker 1: this plane will not deteriorate in any way. But the
Speaker 1: plane and the graphics file gets more and more decrepit
Speaker 1: as time goes on. Look at the long gray Beard
Speaker 1: and this plane. That'd be weird. Uh what kind of
Speaker 1: airplane would Oscar Wild create? It would be a fabulous Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're on the same page on that one, all right.
Speaker 1: So that those are the six ideas. Now we don't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot more information because these these projects
Speaker 1: have just gotten the green lights, so they're going to
Speaker 1: start seriously looking into the stuff. They get some funding.
Speaker 1: The funding depends upon the project. I think it's between
Speaker 1: one and five million dollars a year or something like that,
Speaker 1: which is a significant amount. Yeah, the projects are going
Speaker 1: to last between two and two and a half years.
Speaker 1: They were just announced yesterday as of the recording of
Speaker 1: this podcast on June twenty second. So uh yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: excited to see what news develops, right and to talk
Speaker 1: about those other two parts anti a c P. Just
Speaker 1: to close this out, Lauren mentioned the Transformational Tools and
Speaker 1: Technology or t t T. That's all about advancing computational
Speaker 1: and experimental tools used by NASA and aviation applications. So
Speaker 1: they look into developing advances in technology will help analyze, understand,
Speaker 1: and predict performance in various aviation concepts. So the cool
Speaker 1: thing about this his T T T is innovating in
Speaker 1: a way to make the tools to help judge how
Speaker 1: effective the other stuff being developed by the various branches
Speaker 1: of T A c P. You know, how effective are
Speaker 1: those and so it's it's uh, you know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to actually develop new tools to measure things to
Speaker 1: make sure that whatever the um the hoped for effect
Speaker 1: is is actually being achieved. So that's pretty cool. It's
Speaker 1: all about developing those ideas that make other ideas uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we can judge whether or not they're really working.
Speaker 1: And then the leading edge arrow research for NASSA or
Speaker 1: LEARN is all about looking to creating totally new next
Speaker 1: generation capabilities and aeronautics research. So again kind of looking
Speaker 1: for the next huge leap um. Keeping in mind that
Speaker 1: usually advances and engineering come in lots of little steps, right.
Speaker 1: We get, we learned things, we implement them, We make
Speaker 1: incremental improvements to the stuff that we build. We don't
Speaker 1: typically have enormous jumps. Although that those are very popular stories.
Speaker 1: Everyone loves the story of someone who comes up with
Speaker 1: a brand new, innovative idea that makes a huge difference.
Speaker 1: We just have to remember that's the exception, not the rule.
Speaker 1: The rule is we tend to make gradual improvements over time,
Speaker 1: which is fine, um, And nothing should be taken away
Speaker 1: from the thousands of people who have contributed to those
Speaker 1: small increments. Those are things that have had a measurable impact.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely, and that's why. Yeah, it's it's really
Speaker 1: nice that that NASA helps support independent universities and research
Speaker 1: teams that are working on that kind of thing. Right,
Speaker 1: those are the ones that specifically are participating in the
Speaker 1: Learn project. So yeah, really exciting stuff. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to find out in two to two and a half
Speaker 1: years which of these studies are going to tribute to
Speaker 1: real changes in aviation. Again, we may end up in
Speaker 1: the process learning things that were never anticipated at the
Speaker 1: beginning of these projects. So it's hard to say. If
Speaker 1: you make a virtual twin of an aircraft, apparently it's
Speaker 1: always an evil twin. So all of them have gotes
Speaker 1: which then developed into the long beards we've already discussed,
Speaker 1: or possibly we learned that the digital twin feels all
Speaker 1: the pain the original airplane fields. Who knows. There's all
Speaker 1: these sort of things that we could learn and and
Speaker 1: and fun knowledge that will be handy in pub trivia
Speaker 1: and years to come. So uh, this was a This
Speaker 1: was a blast to cover. If you guys have suggestions
Speaker 1: for future topics that we can cover on this podcast
Speaker 1: or in the video series, I welcome you to right
Speaker 1: to us and let us know what your ideas are.
Speaker 1: Our email address is fw thinking at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com, or drop us a line on Twitter, Facebook
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