NASA's Chief Calls for Bold Vision in Aviation

NASA's Chief Calls for Bold Vision in Aviation

From a news story by
CNN San Francisco Reporter Don Knapp

October 20, 1999

NASA Vision

With Crowded airplanes, bigger airports, huge traffic jams! The chief of the nation's aeronautics and space administration says the U.S. air transit system has been pushed to its limits and no new technology stands ready to ease the load.

"Right now, for a doorstep to destination trip under 500 miles, the average speed is just 80 miles an hour, let me say that again. 80 miles an hour." Says NASA's Daniel Goldin. He is calling for a revolution, a reinvention of the aviation industry to make air transit faster, safer, cheaper.

NASA's already working on radical new ideas.

An experimental neural network helps fly this F-15. Built in intelligence that automatically corrects errors, even when a system fails.

NASA is also developing an aircraft that flies eight times the speed of sound. A plane with wings that change shape [or] morph, for greater efficiency. Planes with jet engines without moving parts; instruments that allow pilots to follow a highway in the sky.

At Dallas Ft. Worth, NASA's final approach spacing system increased air traffic so well; it was the equivalent of adding a new runway.

Some NASA designed airplanes don't even need runways.

Daniel Goldin says, "Airplanes that don't require all those runways, airplanes that will be much quieter, and don't put out emissions."

Boeing's tail-less cargo plane would land at forty-five miles an hour on a strip about two football fields in length. Far less space than cargo planes now need.

Lorin Bliss of Boeing says, "By removing the tail section, you get rid of a tremendous amount of drag, you get rid of a tremendous cost of the aircraft."

Some of NASA's new ideas will happen, says Goldin. Some won't. "We're going to do bold things. We're going to crash, we're going to learn, and we're going to fly. And America will be on wings in the 21st century."

"Quieter, faster, safer wings," says Goldin.

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