My NASA 2003 Faculty Fellowship Program

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Background.  I spent 10 weeks of the summer (2 June through 8 August) of 2003 at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), participating in the NASA Faculty Fellowship Program (NFFP).  The objectives of the NFFP are to foster collaborations between NASA personnel and academicians.  In fact, opportunities exist for students to participate in research at many NASA facilities.  Most of us Fellows showed up for the group photo session and the group flight suit photo and individual flight suit photo sessions.  All of us received a certificate of participation.

Although my family was not with me and I missed them terribly, I would not have traded this experience for anything in the world.  It was a great honor to work at our National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  I was born in 1961 and grew up with the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle Programs.  My parents would wake us kids up at any time of the night to watch liftoffs and splashdowns and everything in between.  In 1968, I played along with "Major Matt Mason," orbiting his "Rocket Ship" around our Christmas tree, as Apollo 8 orbited the Moon.  I marveled at every one of NASA's many successes, and always knew we would recover after each of just a handful of setbacks.  Our space program has been one of the defining endeavors of our history, as a country and as human beings, and has deeply influenced my entire life.  This Fellowship has meant much to me because NASA has meant so much to us.

My NASA Associate in this work was Renee C. Lake, an Aerospace Engineer in the Aeroelasticity Branch (AB) of the Structures and Materials Competency at LaRC. I am grateful to Renee for her support of my application to the Program and my research during it, and her friendship.  The area in which I worked is at a fairly early stage of development, and she gave me complete freedom to pursue whatever path I chose.  The other folks in the AB were kind enough to share their good cheer and workspace with me too, and I am grateful to them, as well as their leaders, Branch Head Stan Cole and Assistant Branch Head Boyd Perry.  I was not surprised to find the entire group to be dedicated to their work, intelligent, diligent, and supportive and caring of each other.

Mini-Journal.  I worked in what is called the East Area of NASA LaRC, in Building 648, the home of the Transonic Dynamics Tunnel (TDT).  The folks there just call the building the TDT.  The East Area is located on the south and east end of Langley Air Force Base (LAFB), so I was fortunate to find a place to live just south of the AFB gate.  I bicycled in every day from my apartment, up LaSalle Avenue a short distance to the gate.  The security and identification checks were thorough, and the guards (and dogs) meant business.  After a time, I got to know some of the guards by face, and they me.  Even so, the scrutiny did not diminish:  I just got friendly words of encouragement to go along with the scrutiny.

On my way to the TDT, I would pass retired aircraft mounted on pedestals ... a B-52, F-4, F-86, F-105, F16, and F15.  Birds perching on them were a great juxtaposition.  Further on, I would pass officer's housing, single and double family homes (some maybe more) where the officer's lived.  Closer to the water (the Back River) ran General's Row, where the generals lived in large single family homes, with their number of stars, their names, and their wife's names mounted on signs in the front yard.  All of the houses were mostly painted Air Force Brown.  Practically everything was brown, even the bike rack I used every day and the fire hydrants.  The stop signs were red though.

Most every weekday held the same itinerary for me.  I awoke very early, ran, rode my bike to work, worked late, rode my bike home, ate, read, and fell asleep.  It might sound boring, but it wasn't.  On weekends, I would run and ride my bike some more, write, and hang out by the pool or see a movie.  I hung out with another fellow or two a few times, most notably to see a French movie, to go to Virginia Beach, and to play tennis.  One morning, after a particularly strong thunderstorm (after which I was without power for 26 hours), another Fellow and I went golfing on the AFB.  It was a great time to be golfing on an Air Force base, with fighters and transport aircraft taking off.  Plus, the twosome that joined us (Roger and Ed) were "retired Air Force" who have been best friends for over 30 years.  They were great guys, and I felt privileged to share a morning with people who had shared their lives with each other.  I played my usual outstanding round.

On one morning of one of my last days, I ran onto LAFB under a clear sky.  The constellation Orion was low on the horizon (summer was nearing its end) and Mars (as close as it ever gets) was high above my head.  The aircraft were gleaming above their lights.  It was my most peaceful run of the summer and a fitting end to my Fellowship.

Hummingbird Wings.  Hummingbirds are remarkable animals and the most agile of flyers.  Their wings obviously play a large role in this agility.  The structures of their wings is what I began a study of during my Fellowship.  What I accomplished is summarized in an abstract that appears in the Final Report of the NFFP.  More detail will be found soon in a Contractor Report and a paper, and, hopefully, I will be able to add much more to this knowledge base in the future.