Dear Reader,

This is the first in a series of bi-monthly updates that will be posted on the website of the NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Program. My main intent is to communicate more effectively with all of the parties that are interested in our work and our future: the members of the NASA family; our industrial, academic, and government partners; and the community at large. These updates will predominantly highlight significant accomplishments of the program, outline our strategic direction and the reasons why we do what we do, and provide a forum to answer questions from the community. Starting with this issue, questions can be submitted to nasa-fa@nasa.gov. Some of these questions will be answered in each bi-monthly update.

In this first update I would like to address the essence of the Fundamental Aeronautics Program. In simple words, what is it that we are trying to accomplish and how are we going about doing it? The name of this program was not chosen by accident: the Fundamental Aeronautics Program is devoted to fundamental research work in a variety of areas that are of critical importance to the future of aeronautics. The program is truly dedicated to the mastery and intellectual stewardship of the core competencies of aeronautics for the nation, across all flight regimes.

One thing does need to be clarified: what do we mean by fundamental research? Our definition of fundamental research is not to be confused with research whose only goal is to gain knowledge and understanding of the physical world without regard to whether or not the knowledge obtained will be of any practical use (sometimes this is called basic research). Our definition is broader. The aeronautics enterprise moves forward by using such basic knowledge to engineer systems that improve life for humankind. For us, fundamental research encompasses all research that generates knowledge, technologies, and methods to enable the development of engineering systems that significantly advance the state of the art. In ARMD jargon, fundamental research can be found at all levels of our "pyramid," from foundational physics and modeling to multidisciplinary capabilities and system-level design.

A key element of the program is the mastery and intellectual stewardship of the core competencies of aeronautics for the nation, across all flight regimes, and we strive to maintain and enhance these core competencies through various means. First, we are creating a broad-based, in-house research program that focuses on outstanding challenges for the future of atmospheric flight (through any atmosphere, including the atmospheres of other planets). These challenges fall under various categories including performance challenges (fuel efficiency, higher speeds, short take-off and landing, extreme heating environments, low-cost access to space), environmental challenges (noise, emissions, alternative fuels, sonic boom), and multidisciplinary integration challenges (airframe-propulsion integration, revolutionary new aircraft and rotorcraft configurations, and integrated flight control systems). Secondly, we are partnering with academe and industry and providing funding through the NASA Research Announcement (NRA) to foster the pursuit of advanced and innovative ideas and to help train the next generation of engineers and scientists. The NRA is broadly advertised and openly competed so that we enlist the best and the brightest to achieve our goals. Lastly, we are pursuing partnerships with industry to create and leverage research opportunities at the systems level that would not be available otherwise.

The program is organized into four separate projects: the Subsonic Fixed Wing, Subsonic Rotary Wing, Supersonics, and Hypersonics Projects. Each of them is focused on the key technical issues that prevent progress in their particular domain. Through our projects, we are supporting the growth of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NGATS or NextGen) by enabling new aircraft (including rotorcraft) and aircraft components that have lower noise, fewer emissions, and higher performance. We are also removing environmental and performance barriers for commercially viable supersonic flight. Finally, we are looking ahead at air-breathing technologies that will one day make low-cost, routine access to space possible. You can find more details about the content in each of these projects here.

The bottom line is that we use taxpayer money to advance, through research, the aeronautics enterprise. Because we use taxpayer money, we have a duty to invest in technology that maximizes taxpayer return on investment or that makes advances possible that would not happen without the help of government. The results of our pre-competitive research are widely disseminated and available to support the nation's aerospace industry.

As you can see, the Fundamental Aeronautics Program is organized around some very straightforward, high-level principles: maintaining the core competencies of aeronautics, engaging in high-quality fundamental research, pursuing partnering strategies that make sense, and ensuring that the taxpayer is getting his/her money's worth. You can bet that all the decisions made in the future of this program will strive to be consistent with this message.

Sincerely,

Juan J. Alonso
Director, Fundamental Aeronautics Program Office
Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate