In an earlier post, I commented that NASA will have some serious problems ahead despite an increase in its FY05 budget. Problems directly effecting NASA Ames are finally getting some public exposure, refer to:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=998

NASA Ames' original claim to fame from its NACA days (1930s) was in its wind tunnels and world famous expertise in aeronautical engineering (practically invented the subject). NASA Ames second claim to fame was in supercomputing technology (Seymore Cray first sold many of his supercomputers to NASA Ames where the technology went through initial development). At one time, NASA Ames was a direct competitor to JPL in interplanetary exploration. For example, Pioneers 10, 11, Pioneer Venus, Galileo Probe and Lunar Prospector were NASA Ames projects (most of those vehicles were controlled directly from NASA Ames).

Those halcyon days are gone. Without any real public debate, the world class research and development organization at NASA Ames has been slowly whittled down to little more than an empty shell. Almost all of the wind tunnels at NASA Ames have been shutdown and their support staff laid off. This includes the world's largest wind tunnel, the 40x80. The 40x80 was shutdown just after performing a crucial role in debugging the parachute design used in the now successful Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft. NASA Ames still has much of NASA's supercomputing capability in the form of massively parallel computers. However over the last couple of months much of the support staff for NASA Ames' computer facilities have been laid off (the machines are running with skeleton support staff). The world renowned interplanetary exploration capability of NASA Ames is long gone. The last gasp was Lunar Prospector which verified the existance of hydrogen as either hydrated rock or possibly ice on the lunar crust. Through actions behind closed doors, NASA Ames has been gutted and vandalized. The lonely survivors of NASA Ames' past glories are now facing the prospect of career termination. Soon NASA Ames will be little more than a museum of abandoned wind tunnels and empty buildings.

Now you may ask: So what? Aerospace technology was the best thing before integrated circuits which was the best thing before the Internet which was the best thing before biotech....

Aeronautics should NOT be a dead field. At one time much (most?) of America's balance of international trade was through selling jumbo jets like the Boeing 747 and the MD-11. However that market share is being lost to the French Airbus. Transsonic aircraft have become a generic commodity because most significant research and development ended in the 1980s. Revolutionary concepts like blended wing aircraft and the sonic cruiser died because no single private company could afford the enormous research and development costs. That sort of research and development was previously performed at national facilities like NASA Ames. Advanced computer technology was NASA Ames' bread and butter. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was practically invented at NASA Ames on state-of-the-art supercomputers that were being test driven at NASA Ames. Many of the significant break throughs in automobile engine fuel efficiency and aircraft design came directly from CFD methods developed at NASA Ames. Almost all CFD research at NASA Ames has ended and the researchers are being laid off now.

How is America going to remain competive in a globalized world economy? Are we going to sell primary products like timber, iron ore and bauxite? Not likely, America is mostly clear cut and mined out. Are we going to compete toe-to-toe with the Chinese in labor intensive manufacturing? No way, the Chinese workers are being paid 1/10 as much as our unskilled workers. The hard truth is our single niche to remaining successful in a globalized world economy is through high technology. However the vital high tech jobs are now being "out sourced" to Europe, India and China. Research and development organizations like NASA Ames should be receiving massive public and private funding to develop technologies necessary towards America remaining competive. Instead we are shutting those facilites down.

We are eating our seed corn and no one seems to care!

In 30 years time we will have no choice but to compete toe-to-toe with the Chinese, Indians and South Americans at $5/hour (if we're lucky). Are you concerned about our declining standard of living? Are you worried about feeding your family? You should be because you ain't seen nothing yet!

Gary