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JOSH: NASA is working to design
the Airliner of the future...

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Faster, with less noise, and
less impact on the environment.

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Get ready for take off...
Next on Real World.

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JOSH: Not all of NASA’s best
designs are intended for space.

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Many of the most important
developments in its history

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have to do with aircraft that
travel within earth’s

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atmosphere.

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NASA has always been one of the
foremost authorities in

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developing aircraft...
you know like airplanes,

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and helicopters...

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In fact the world as we know
it, the ability to fly from one

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place to another, to ship our
packages over night,

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would not exist, without all
the work that NASA has done...

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And that work continues today.

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One project has NASA working on
ways to make supersonic

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airplanes - planes that fly
faster than the speed of sound

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- safe, quiet and common for
every day air travel.

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PETER COEN: We don’t build
airplanes, but we’re trying to

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put the technology and the
tools in place, where someone,

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if the market was right, could
design and construct a super

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sonic aircraft that would be
effective

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from an economic standpoint.

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JOSH: Peter Coen is the
Supersonics Project

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Principal Investigator for
NASA’s

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Fundamental Aeronautics
Program.

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PETER: So we really are going
after some of these key

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challenges such as the sonic
boom. We’d like to get to the

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point where we would lower the
boom so that the airplane could

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fly over land without creating
a loud or annoying disturbance

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on the ground that people would
hear.

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JOSH: That was a problem with
the Concorde, the last

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commercial airliner that flew
at supersonic speeds.

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It was fast but created a loud
sonic boom.

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The Concorde flew more than
twice the speed of sound,

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topping out at Mach 2.2.

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That’s 2330 kilometers per
hour.

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By comparison, the Boeing 747
tops out at mach .92,

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or 988 kilometers per hour, the
airbus A380 reaches top speeds

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of mach .96 or 1020 kilometers
per hour.

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But the noise and the cost made
the Concorde, and supersonic

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commercial flight less than
practical.

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Now here’s the really cool
part... NASA is looking way

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outside the box, trying to pull
as many ideas as possible

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together to make this project a
reality.

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They are even looking to school
kids like you.

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EDRIC SAN MIGUEL: My design has
a key thing to minimize the

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sonic boom is to have this
extended nose which will

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reshape the sound wave
generated by an aircraft that

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travel at speeds exceeding the
speeds of sound.

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JOSH: This is Edric San Miguel.
He’s a high school student,

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and the winner of the NASA
Fundamental Aeronautics Student

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Competition for 2008-2009 -
High School Division.

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EDRIC: Another thing in my
design is the materials will be

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lightweight and fuel efficient,
unlike the Concorde.

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The Concorde, it demonstrated a
lot of difficulties with fuel

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efficiency. In addition to the
extended nose, what I found in

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my research is an inverted
v-tail shape, because it also

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helps reshape this sound wave.

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So instead of having that sharp
sound wave, that’s generated by

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aircraft, it’s going to be more
like a smooth curve.

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So that will minimize the sonic
boom.

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JOSH: As a result of his
innovative ideas, he’s spending

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the summer at NASA, learning
what it takes to be an

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aeronautics engineer for the
agency.

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EDRIC: The experience here at
NASA is pretty phenomenal.

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You get a lot of hands on
things that you can work on.

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And it gives you an idea of
what your future might be like

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if you continue the path you
are headed to.

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PETER: Our goal is to inspire
young people to think, and get

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out there and do a little
research and try to understand

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a problem, and then think about
how would you create a solution

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to that problem. So that was
the kind of exciting thing

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about the high school
competition and particularly

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Edric’s submission is that it
was obvious he did his

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homework, and read a lot about
the problem, and then took a

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whole bunch of ideas and put
them together into a solution

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that, you know, has potential.

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The fact that he thought about
it, synthesized a unique

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concept and then wrote about it
in a very clear, expressive

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manner, resulted him being a
winner.

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JOSH: And Edric’s work is just
one of many NASA programs that

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student interns get to work on.

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Elsewhere at Langley, students
are working in the transonic

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Dynamic wind tunnel, trying to
minimize flutter in aircrafts.

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Other students are using
computer models to determine

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the environmental impact of
scramjets, super-fast planes

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that will fly perhaps as fast
as 24 times the speed of sound.

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If Edric continues in
engineering, he could one day,

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help to develop a better way to
make supersonic flight

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a reality. And that could cut
flight time in half, or more.

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But the sonic boom created by
planes flying faster than the

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speed of sound needs to be
reduced or eliminated.

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PETER: When an airplane is
flying faster than sound,

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it’s outracing its own noise,
it’s own pressure disturbance.

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So what happens is, after the
airplane has passed overhead,

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the entire pressure disturbance
created by the airplane arrives

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at the ground instantaneously
as two very loud bangs.

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It’s the instantaneousness of
that sound that creates the

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real disturbance. It’s an audio
disturbance primarily.

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But you can actually feel the
pressure change on your body.

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JOSH: But now researchers are
looking to the future to planes

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that will perform better than
supersonic planes of the past

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PETER: Near the airplane there
are lots of these pressure

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changes due to the nose of the
airplane, the wings the cockpit

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canopy, the engine, the cells.

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As that boom travels from the
airplane, it travels out like a

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sound wave, like ripples in a
pond, and begins to head

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towards the ground. All those
little waves begin to merge

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together into two large waves.
So that’s why the sonic boom is

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a large bang bang on the
ground.

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To control the sonic boom, you
have to keep all those little

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disturbances from merging
together. So you design the

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fuselage and the wings of the
airplane such that those shock

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wave are small and they’re kind
of evenly spaced down the

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length of the airplane.

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The state of the technology at
the current time, favors a

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smaller aircraft, smaller than
the Concorde, which could

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reintroduce supersonic flight

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as a viable means of
transportation.

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NASA’s vision is further out,
say 20 years from now,

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where we could have a small
supersonic airliner, which

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could be used on long range
routes, relatively efficiently

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and without environmental
impact.

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JOSH: And with students like
Edric... and you, thinking

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about this technology, the
innovation will keep on coming.

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You can learn more about
supersonic flight and all NASA

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aeronautics technology by
surfing over to

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www.NASA.gov/topics
/aeronautics.

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