Recently in Aerospace Category

With temperatures in Rolla well below freezing and the winds gusting, thermal curtains sound like a pretty good idea. Except this isn't being designed for your average window or to guard you from a wicked winter - it's to protect B-52 Stratofortress aircrews from a nuclear attack's blinding light.

S&T senior Jennifer Hoffman (pictured right), an engineering intern with Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, is part of a team that's been developing a prototype thermal curtain that's reflective on the outside and rubberized on the inside.The prototypes are expected to be ready this month for testing, with the final versions to be completed by October 2009.

(U.S. Air Force photo/Margo Wright)

Petty Officer 2nd Class Andrew Jackson, a 2003 computer engineering graduate of Missouri S&T, had several pairs of eyes on him Wednesday, as he prepared to take down "a wayward satellite soon to hurtle to Earth with toxic fuel," reports the Kansas City Star.

“I’ve done a whole bunch of these” missile launches, the fire controlman said in a telephone interview Thursday from aboard the USS Lake Erie. “But there was a lot more tension this time.”

Eventually, he set the controls to fire at the precise moment. The result was the latest shot heard round the world — a U.S. Navy cruiser blasting to bits a doomed U.S. spy satellite. The three-stage Standard Missile-3 launched from the guided missile cruiser screamed into space Wednesday to strike the dead and soon-to-lose-orbit spacecraft.

Jackson said all was quiet on the ship after the missile tore more than a hundred miles into the sky, long minutes until the report that it had apparently hit the target.

“Then there was a whole lot of cheering,” said Jackson, who went to North Platte High School in Dearborn and later received a computer engineering degree from the University of Missouri-Rolla. “Lots of high-fives all around.”

It's not just our alums that have their eyes on the skies. Missouri S&T students too are curious. Here's a post from a group of OURE students who are working with Dr. KM Isaac on a proposed new aircraft.

With a flight profile similar to that of an eagle, the proposed solid-state aircraft could soar for long periods, flapping its wings to regain altitude.

Using thin-film solar arrays and an ionic polymer-metal composite material that can deform in an electric field like an artificial muscle and return to its original shape when the field is removed, the vehicle would be able to flap its wings without using conventional mechanical parts. Designed to complement other types of exploration vehicles, the solid-state aircraft could provide high-resolution data on a larger scale than the Mars rovers.

Next week marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, the Soviet satellite that shocked America into a cold war battle for space supremacy. Already, the news media are examining the anniversary from all angles. I typed "sputnik" into A Google News' search engine and retrieved 327 articles and blog posts. Expect to read even more about Sputnik 1 (pictured) and the golden anniversary this weekend.

Several of the articles I skimmed look back at the Sputnik launch on Oct. 4, 1957, as a pivotal moment in U.S. history, perhaps as defining a moment for the space race as Pearl Harbor was for U.S. involvement in World War II.

The fact that the Soviets beat us into space was a blow to our collective ego. But it -- as Pearl Harbor 16 years earlier -- was a clarion call for us to get our act together and rally around the cause of beating our cold war adversaries to the moon. It was, as The New York Times puts it, a time When Science Suddenly Mattered, in Space and in Class. Times reporter Cornelia Dean writes:

For many, Sputnik was proof that American education, particularly in science, had fallen behind. Scientists and engineers warned Congress that the cold war was being fought with slide rules, not rifles. In response Congress passed the National Defense Education Act in 1958, providing, among other things, college scholarships and other help for aspiring scientists, engineers and mathematicians. Meanwhile, some of the nation’s eminent scientists were collaborating on new ways to teach high school physics, biology and chemistry.

These days, the cold war is ancient history, the U.S. is not investing in science and technology as it should, and the head of NASA thinks China will be on the moon before we ever return. But if the 50th anniversary of Sputnik 1 teaches us anything, it is that, given the right cause, vision and national leadership, we can pull together and achieve something great.

UMR graduate Sandra Magnus -- one of three alumni who have trekked to space as NASA astronauts -- encouraged kids in Collinsville, Ill., to aim for the stars during a recent visit to the Collinsville Public Library. Magnus -- shown here in a 2002 photo from UMR Magazine -- also visited the public libraries in nearby Alton and O'Fallon, Ill., to deliver a similar message.

The Granite City (Ill.) Press Record covered Magnus' visit, in which she described her october 2002 space shuttle flight to the International Space Station and her 11 days in orbit.

She also presented a video about her trip there and then answered questions from children and parents in the audience, such as "What made you decide to become an astronaut?", "What do you do for fun?" and "Where's the bathroom on the spaceship?"

Asked what it was like to be in zero gravity, she said it was hard to describe, but compared it to scuba diving or laying on a lake in an inner-tube.

"It's a very relaxing feeling," she said.

Magnus earned a bachelor's degree in physics from UMR in 1986 and a master's in electrical engineering in 1990. The other UMR alumni who have taken flight as NASA astronauts are Janet Kavandi (MS Chem'82) and Col. Tom Akers (Math'73, '75). Akers is now retired from space flight and the Air Force, and teaches mathematics at UMR.

Some UMR design teams build cars that go fast. Some create canoes out of concrete. Some even put together remote-controlled planes. But UMR's SAT team? It's pushing to take its creation beyond land, water and sky. The team's goal is to send it to space. And at a recent competition, the team came pretty close to achieving that aspiration.

Magnus (second from left) on Sept. 16.

UMR alum Sandra Magnus, a veteran space flyer astronaut, is leading a crew of four this week on a seven-day undersea training mission. The crew, preparing for a possible assignment to the International Space Station, will imitate moonwalks and test concepts for mobility using various spacesuit configurations and weights to simulate lunar gravity. Techniques for communication, navigation, geological sample retrieval, construction and using remote-controlled robots on the moon's surface also will be tested.

"We continue to press the limits of our imaginations as we test operational concepts that may be used when we return to the moon," said NEEMO 11 Mission Director Marc Reagan. "Building on the NEEMO 9 and 10 missions, we will explore new challenges and learn to overcome the inherent difficulties of living and working on the moon. These results will allow our designers and engineers to improve designs of habitats, robots and spacesuits."

Magnus flew to the International Space Station in October 2002 and used the station's robotic arm to help attach a new segment to the station's truss structure.

Click here for more information about NEEMO, including mission imagery, crew journals, and links to webcams and the Digital Learning Network.

With terror alerts adding to the restrictions airline passengers face -- and those restrictions slowing people down even more at the airport -- it might be quicker and easier to fly yourself to your destination.

UMR's mechanical and aerospace engineering department can help you with that. This fall, Bob Oetting will offer a Private Pilot Ground School to teach prospective pilots everything they need to know to pass the FAA's Private Pilot, Recreational Pilot and Sport Pilot written tests. The group will meet on Monday and Thursday nights in September and October.

U.S. Sen. Kit Bond's latest announcements of appropriations from the Senate Defense spending bill includes funding for two UMR projects:

$5 million for the Center for Aerospace Manufacturing Technologies, a multidisciplinary research program charged with developing next-generation military and civilian aircraft.

$2 million for a steel castings research project designed to improve the Army's weapon system reliability.

The earmarks are among $77 million in defense appropriations for Missouri.

If you missed last night's KOLR-10 broadcast, you can catch the story about UMR's aerospace camp here.