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Mark D. Moore in his office          Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

NASA                           NTRServer                 Happy days are here again! RAD AWE!
Terms and issues:
  • airborne wind-capturing platforms        ( AWCP )
  • nano-tube tethers
  • graphene-involved membranes
  •  "mother-of-all-solution-matrices"    daveS
  •  landmark series of experiments
  • level playing field of understanding
  • desirements
  • feasible-benefit frontier
  • first principles analysis
  • gaps in understanding
  •  
Discussion is open:
  • $100,000 grant to study the AWECS    Year: 2010 initiation? Details?  How has that money been spent? Spending is done. Note of Jan. 19, 2011. Furtherance is on chosen personal time until more funding occurs.
     
  • Methods the government can use to fairly evaluate competing ideas
  • Nascent renewable energy industry that is flexing its imagination
  • Systems Analysis Branch at NASA's Langley Research Center
  • To research what it will take to judge the value of any of those ideas.
  • "We're trying to create a level playing field of understanding"
    • What would that level-playing-field-of-understanding (LPFoU) look like?
    • "where all of the concepts and approaches can be compared -- what's similar about them? What's different about them, and how can you compare them?"
  • "Airspace is a commodity,"    How will that airspace be traded?
  • Dec. 14, 2010  Will politics trump what could be practiced?
    Such has apparently occurred too many times.  ~JoeF
     
  • Dec. 14, 2010  I hope this isn't just an expensive way to keep offices full. Chuck Yeager says he used to wring all the information out of a prototype aircraft in a quick series of flights before NASA got ahold of it and pretended to make great discoveries via minor variations in procedure, taking years.    ~~ Bob
     
  • Dec. 14, 2010:  "NASA is late to the AWE table, but will serve as a reality-check for the weakest concepts. Already we see "obvious" findings to upset the marketing claims of the companies like Joby & Makani. In particular, NASA understands how single-anchor AWECS of at-best modest power rating consume disproportionate amounts of airspace & land footprint. This important KiteLab finding was suppressed by Joby's staff for presentation at AWEC2010 & had to be presented directly to NASA. Also, NASA understands the limitations of bleeding-edge flight automation, so its a most welcome mention that human-supervised semi-automation of utility-scale AWE is a valid option. KiteLab consistently insists direct human supervision must play a major early role.

    We can predict a few things of NASA- They will undertake the "mother-of-all-solution-matrices" to vet concepts. Internal funding & staffing will grow fast. They will plan & conduct a landmark series of experiments. NASA is on-time & well-qualified to study issues like airspace-integration, & carbon nano-tubes as the ultimate tether material, & graphene as the ultimate membrane.

    Best of luck to Mark Moore in his study,
    DaveS "
     
  • Jan. 13, 2011. New AWE Era.
  • http://cafefoundation.org/v2/pdf_tech/NASA.Aeronautics/NasaPavTech.pdf
  • FF-AWE discussion.
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Related, but a bit removed:
NASA and hang gliders (parawing, paraglider, Rogallo wing, Rogallo wing stiffened with inflatable beams, Rogallo wing stiffened with metal booms, powered hang gliders, Rogallo-wing canopy parachutes,  kite hang gliders, towed kite hang gliders,  tow-launched hang gliders, space-vehicle deployable).  Hang mass below parasol wing; adjust position of the payload by various means; auxiliary kiting and free-flight kiting of the hang gliders (paragliders), kite-launched kite gliding, space-vehicle-launched kite-gliding, powered-aircraft-tow-launched kiting, powered-aircraft-tow-launched kite gliding). Degrees of "flexible" for flexible wing  are from fully limp to very tiny (near solid) ... 
  • NACA roots. Francis Melvin Rogallo at NACA and then in the renamed NASA.
  • Sputnik happened.   Urgency in the space race happened. 
  • http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/NASA_at_50_1961.html
  • Reentry challenge and response spectrum
  • Training hang glider pilots
  • Paresev program
  • Gemini hang gliders (paragliders)
  • Apollo hang gliders (paragliders)
  • Contracts with other companies and agencies for hang gliders and powered hang gliders. Multitude of uses.
  • Patents
  • Technical reports
  • Photographs
  • Engineers and technicians
  • Media, communications, and various audiences
  • http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/Francis_M._Rogallo                  [BAK]
  • Marine relationships
  • Army relationships
  • Ryan Aeronautical relationships
  • STG [Space Task Group]    SpaceTaskGroup (generalized link)
  • SpaceTaskGroupRogallo (finer link general)
  • http://www.vahsonline.org/Websites/vahsonline/Images/History%20Project/Rogallo%20Had%20A%20Dream.pdf
  • [ ]  Are the dates and text of applications available?  Author Sharon Dillon "While the Flexi-kite did not become a best-seller the technology changed aviation. As early as 1952 Rogallo suggested that flexible wings might someday be useful for space commuters. In 1954 he presented this concept to the Air Force Research and Development Command. Shortly thereafter he unsuccessfully submitted proposals to NACA to include parawing research in the budget and to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences (IAS). Both rejected the idea. After the Russians (then called the United Soviet Socialist Republic) launched Sputnik I in 1957 NACA gave Rogallo approval to do some wind-tunnel and model testing in the 7 x 10-foot wind tunnel."   Interesting would be the text of his proposals and the notes of rejection; precise dates and memos too. Are such documents available in NASA? [ ]
Bobby Rogallo, Carol Rogallo, Bunny Rogallo, and Fran Rogallo were early test pilots for the flexible-wing. They were part of the Rogallo-family invention-confirmation team. They tested the wings in captive kiting format at Merrimac Shores, Buckroe Beach and Plum Tree Island, all in Virginia, USA. (Ref: Sharon Dillon in her Rogallo Had a Dream paper.) Since NACA at first did not let FMR test at the Langley professional workplace, the work done by the Rogallo family at home belonged by rights to them and not NACA.

NASA Headquarters

Ames Research Center

Dryden Flight Research Center

Goddard Space Flight Center

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Johnson Space Center

Langley Research Center

Marshall Space Flight Center

Stennis Space Center

http://www.nasa.gov/centers

Clip from

NASA Personal Air Transportation Technologies

Mark D. Moore was the Personal Air Vehicle Sector
manager in the NASA Vehicle Systems Program until
the recent redirection of NASA Aeronautics into the
Fundamental Aeronautics Program. Most research
activities relating to both SATS and the PAV sector
have been concluded and no new research into these
topic areas is currently planned by NASA. After the
conclusion of the final contracts next year, NASA will
continue to encourage small aircraft related research
through the NASA PAV Centennial Challenge yearly
competitions. This research effort has in many ways
mirrored the research path of other disruptive
technologies as discussed in ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’
by Clayton Christensen and has once again shown that
“disruptive projects stalled when it came to allocating
scarce resources among competing product and
technology development proposals”. While large
institutions such as IBM and Bell Labs often initiate
disruptive research that has major societal impact, it
appears that “firms that lead the industry in every
instance of adopting disruptive technologies are entrants
to the industry, not its incumbent leaders”. The author
remains committed to NASA’s important role in
disruptive technology development and continues to
work on independent research in this topic area through
his current PhD studies and may be contacted ...