RR! Thinking-dangerous. I think that the next generation of Hi-Tech is going to be Science (to make things better and more efficient)......and defense stock, not just rockets, planes but equiptment used by Delta Force, etc.
Huntsville is full of these businesses and they are rebuilding and rehiring.....I do not think all the answers are tied to Silicon Valley...............
Oh! Did I mention the NASA Center....:
(I found this article after starting this post.
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NASA research creates down-to-earth benefits
From pistons to private spaceships to computer processors, research helps private sector here
07/07/02
By SHELBY G. SPIRES
Times Aerospace Writer shelbys@htimes.com
Getting out of this world sometimes helps improve the world.
Research at Marshall Space Flight Center, and science work in Huntsville in general, is geared at developing stronger materials for spacecraft, building improved rockets for space travel and using microgravity on the International Space Station to understand the way materials on Earth behave.
Sometimes those discoveries can take unexpected turns. Materials research can lead to better automobiles. Better spacecraft can develop new commercial markets, and microgravity can help companies on Earth develop faster computer chips.
Marshall has several programs in its Science Directorate and through the Space Launch Initiative -- NASA's $4.5 billion program to make space travel cheaper and safer -- that have the potential of becoming big business in Huntsville and throughout the United States.
Work done in microgravity to better understand fluids and the properties of new drugs could have a lasting impact on a diverse range of technology from disease treatments to efficient refining of gasoline. NASA managers also hope that work in the Space Launch Initiative will lead to new classes of spacecraft that will be launched not by the government, but private industry.
Researchers hope the science coming out of Marshall and other NASA centers will not only benefit people but also develop new economic markets.
Better cars: A stronger engine alloy would let pistons burn gas more efficiently
Jonathan Lee, a research scientist at Marshall, has been working for the past seven years to design a stronger, heat-resistant aluminum alloy that could be used to improve airlines and spacecraft.
One of the side benefits of Lee's research: it may help the auto industry develop more efficient engines.
"None of the cast alloys right now have enough strength for high performance pistons," Lee said. "People have done a lot of research over the years, but they have not discovered the aluminum alloy that would have the strength at high temperatures."
Those limitations kept engineers from being able to improve piston designs that were known to increase auto efficiency, Lee said. Auto engineers have discovered if the pistons were reworked at the top, cars would burn fuel efficiently and put out less pollution.
"It has to do with emission control," Lee said. "The area of space between the piston and the cylinder wall is small, but when the piston moves up and puts the air and gasoline under pressure, that gas fills this gap. When the spark is given to burn the gasoline and air, then the flame rarely gets into the gap. It just doesn't burn."
All that unburnt fuel is spewed out the back of the car. Drivers don't get the benefit of using up a tank of gas and the environment is harmed when the gas goes into the air and on the ground.
Just shaving off one millimeter from the piston will allow a car's engine to burn the fuel more efficiently, Lee said. "But just taking off that much will make the piston unstable and it will break down," Lee said.
Lee's aluminum discovery will allow engineers to design those pistons to be stronger.
The work is already paying off at Marshall. Three U.S. companies have bought licenses to use the new aluminum process. Royalties from the licenses will go back to Marshall and help further the materials science work being done there.
Smarter spaceships: Video guidance system could let cheaper, safer unmanned vehicles resupply space station
NASA has a need to move cargo and people to the International Space Station. However, space shuttle launches to the station cost at least $500 million, and the space agency wants to cut the cost of cargo flights to around $150 million.
To make it cheaper, a new vehicle is needed, and the key question Huntsville engineers are trying solve is how to use computers to move an unmanned spacecraft within range of the station.
"It's the key technology in solving the access to station problem," said Chris Calfee, program manager for the $56 million Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology, or DART, program at Marshall.
"The Russians have done it, and they continue to do it with their Progress resupply flights to station. Their hardware is heavy, it's hard to get and it's built by the Ukrainians," Calfee said. "The U.S. desires to have that capability. We need it."
It's not as easy as just buying a version of the Progress unmanned rocket from the Russians. NASA has a weight limit of about 50 pounds for the guidance package, and the Russian system weighs hundreds of pounds. A new system is needed.
Calfee said NASA wants to develop the technology and stimulate a new aerospace market by licensing it to private industry. Then the aerospace industry could use it on existing launchers - such as Boeing's Delta IV rockets built in Decatur or Lockheed Martin's Atlas V - and charge NASA a fee to fly cargo to the station.
Work on the rendezvous problem has been ongoing at Marshall for the past decade. Simpler video guidance units have been used on a shuttle flight, Calfee said. Now the advanced guidance system is being developed through the Space Launch Initiative. A Huntsville company, Advanced Optical Systems Inc., has been working on a prototype of the sensor.
Advanced Optical's work will be used to build the prototype, and possibly the technology developed by the Huntsville company will be used in future, said Keith Farr, AOS manager. "They were looking around for a local business that could help them and build a box that could be later turned into flight hardware."
Marshall awarded Advanced Optical Systems a $1 million contract in mid-2001 to develop the video guidance system. Orbital Sciences Corp. is responsible for building the test vehicle.
Advanced Optical's engineers already had a leg up on the work. They had been developing something close to what NASA needed for the Department of Defense, said Richard Hartman, founder and president of Advanced Optical Systems.
The company has done work for the Navy and Army, but this was the first NASA contract it had bid on.
"The big breakthrough that makes our system work has its origins in a classified program. I can't really say what we are doing there," Hartman said. "However, as soon as we saw what NASA wanted, we knew we could make it a lot better."
Hartman said Advanced Optical had already developed a camera, and by leveraging that work it could do the program cheaper and faster than other company. "We contacted Marshall and told them what we could do, and they gave us a chance to show them," he said.
At the end of March, 10 months after starting work, Advanced Optical delivered its first sensor box, Farr said. Now, the company will move into a support-type role, helping Marshall engineers integrate its sensor into the DART test vehicle.
In April 2004, DART is scheduled to be launched off a Pegasus rocket by Orbital Sciences.
"We're excited about it," said Hartman, of Advanced Optical. "If all goes well on this program, we are hoping it leads to more space work for this company."
Faster chips: Extremely pure silicon created in space could speed processors
Smaller is better when it comes to computers. Smaller chips that can run faster have been the goal of computer scientists and engineers since the first of the "thinking" machines filled entire buildings.
Computer chips need special manufacturing processes. Built from silicon wafers that are composed of microscopic crystals, the base materials have to be especially pure.
To make the chips more efficient, they should be built from a single material, said Dr. Aleksandar Ostrogorsky, a researcher with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y.
Ostrogorsky developed experiments to fly on the space shuttle to study how semiconductor materials are formed, after working at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Marshall Space Flight Center throughout the 1990s.
His latest experiment was flown up to the International Space Station in June, and is set to begin this week. The lack of gravity cuts out vibrations and movement during research, helping scientist better understand material properties. That may ultimately help develop more efficient manufacturing processes.
"Many of these type of experiments require the materials to melt," Ostrogorsky said, "and the liquid needs to be in a still environment. On Earth, whenever you melt the material, it is always moving. When we conduct an experiment in space, we have a simpler process because we have a liquid which behaves like a solid."
The research gathered from previous shuttle flights was limited because the experiments could not be in microgravity for an extended time.
"On the shuttle, we would be up for a max of 15 to 18 days, and then we would get to one, maybe three samples," said Reggie Spivey, project engineer on the research. "Here, we will be on orbit at least three months, and we will get to run 12 samples over a period of that three months. That will give us much more research data to work with."
The experiment is designed to operate remotely on the Microgravity Science Glovebox, which was designed at Marshall, and will take up a small amount of station crew's time, Spivey said. "We design to work that way, because right now there's not a lot of crew up there that have the time, anyway," he said. "We can work most of this from the ground, and they will have to change out a sample. That takes maybe half and hour."
After the data is collected, Ostrogorsky and his team will analyze it and decide if more experiments are needed in space and on the ground or if there is something to release via a scientific paper that could help improve the semiconductor manufacturing process.
"The net result is that we are trying to understand the process better, and the properties we need," Ostrogorsky said. "Overall the final outcome would be that the efficiency of the semiconductor process will be improved." |
