WASHINGTON -- The head of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration called on Congress to boost investment in an array
of technological research projects that, within a decade or two,
could significantly improve both commercial aircraft and the
nation's air traffic control system.
Testifying before the House aviation subcommittee, which had
called the hearing on the future of aviation technology, NASA
administrator Daniel Goldin said cutting-edge information systems
could dramatically reduce the possibility of airplane accidents
while allowing commercial aircraft and space shuttles to share the
same airspace.
Goldin said NASA is working with the Federal Aviation
Administration, other government agencies, commercial airlines and
educational institutions on several projects that, when brought to
fruition, would cut congestion at airports and expand air travel to
more communities in the U.S.
"We are focusing on enabling an unquestionably safe and
environmentally friendly expansion of aviation that will
dramatically improve this nation's mobility in the 21st century,"
Goldin said.
"By overlapping information systems on the aviation network, we
will break the current 'hub-and-spoke' mold."
Goldin indicated that the hub-and-spoke system used by airlines
is at least partly designed to assist air traffic controllers in
the tracking of airplanes.
However, once technology currently in development is installed
in airplanes and air traffic control towers across the country,
controllers and airplane pilots "will have precise knowledge of the
position of every aircraft and its flight path," tripling existing
hubs, while creating new hubs in small communities.
The technology, Goldin said, is emerging out of a NASA
initiative that applies technology developed for the space shuttle
to commercial aviation.
For instance, Goldin said, a "synthetic display" is being
developed that extrapolates information from "terrain databases,
accurate geo-positioning and digital datalinks" to create a virtual
representation of the ground, which would allow pilots to pinpoint
exactly where they are, no matter the weather and despite
communication glitches.
Such displays and other new technology would be operated by
"neural network computers that are able to learn and modify
[airplane] and subsystem behavior, based on feedback from embedded
micro-sensors distributed throughout [the airplane's] structure and
systems."
Essentially, Goldin said, tomorrow's airplanes would have an
"artificial nervous system" that, coupled with computers capable of
learning, would "provide the ultimate in vehicle health-management
and the ability to smoothly recover" from unexpected weather
inversions or mechanical problems.
Similar technology would be used in air traffic control towers.
As these learning, neural network computers on the ground interact
with their counterparts in the air, Goldin said it would be
possible to allow airplanes and spacecraft to share the same
airspace, which they are not able to do now for safety and other
reasons.
"Over the long term, we may even see exciting new areas for
future commercial development in space come into being, like
adventure travel," he said.
Goldin also discussed the use of nanotechnology, technology
encompassing supercomputers and semi-conductors similar to today's
computer chips but reduced to microscopic size.
Indeed, such developments are already changing the development
of tomorrow's airplanes, Goldin said, by replacing the need for
hydraulics used in airplane flaps. Tomorrow's aircraft, he said,
would have seamless wings that "morph," much like a bird's wings in
flight, shifting and changing to better use the air currents.
But to spur this brave new world of travel, Goldin said Congress
would have to step in and approve funding for further research and
development to complement research taking place in the private
sector.