MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department
enews Vol 2, #3
December 2005

In this issue:

1. Awards and recognition
2. Positions open
3. Comings and goings
4. Drive it/fly it
5. Humans and technology, planetary parachutes on tap for IAP
6. Mars minutes of terror at MIT Museum
7. SpaceShipOne pilot to speak at AIAA Dinner
8. Student flypaper
9. News to use: AA email groups
10. Sports report: AA soccer team captures trophy
11. News office seeks interesting break plans
12. Web faves

1. AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

Aero-Astro Head Professor Wes Harris has announced that Professor Dave Miller has agreed to serve as Interim Head of the Department's Aerospace Systems Sector. "Dave assumes the Sector leadership duties and responsibilities immediately. Join me in welcoming Dave to this new position," Professor Harris says. Professor Miller succeeds Professor Dan Hastings in the leadership role following Dan's appointment as MIT Dean of Undergraduate Education. "Dan has provided outstanding leadership of the Sector during his tenure. For this high quality leadership, we remain grateful to Dan," Professor Harris says.

Aero-Astro Professor Paul Lagace has been elected a Fellow by the American Society of Composites. Fellows are long-standing members of the Society who have made significant contributions to the advancement of composite technology.

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering has notified Professor Larry Young that its College of Fellows has elected him a Fellow of that organization. "Conferral of this honor signifies recognition of your many distinguished contributions to the field as well as your demonstrated interest, concern, and involvement with critical issues affecting medical and biological engineering."

Congratulations to AA junior Robyn Allen who has been named an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation 2005-06 Undergraduate Scholarship winner. The $2,000 award "enables worthy students to further their education in fields compatible with the AIAA objective." Deadline for the 2006-07 scholarships is January 31, 2006. An online application is available.

2. POSITIONS OPEN

Aero-Astro is seeking candidates for several new tenure track or tenured faculty positions available starting September 2006. A senior faculty dual appointment with EECS in software engineering, a dual appointment with ESD in Air Transportation/Critical Networked Infrastructure Systems, and a position in Control Systems. Enews readers are encouraged to circulate the availability of these positions to interested colleagues outside the Department. Details on these openings are available on the Jobs page.

The MIT Environmental Design Space team is searching for a Postdoctoral Associate. The position includes assessment and application of computational aircraft design tools, leading the development of a fidelity management system, close collaboration with graduate students and other researchers, and interaction with industry partners. Details are available on the Jobs page.

3. COMINGS AND GOINGS

Anne Maynard reports that John Adamczyk of NASA Glenn will be here this winter as visiting scholar and Koji Imakita of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as visiting engineer, both in the Gas Turbine Lab under the auspices of Professor Ed Greitzer. Irene Miller has assumed the temporary role of manager of faculty searches. Jake Crandall has taken a postdoc position with Prof. Missy Cummings, and Dr. Alfredo de Faria of Brazil is a visiting assistant professor working with Professor Raul Radovitzky.

4. DRIVE IT/FLY IT

If AA grad student Carl Dietrich and his team are successful, in the not-too-distant future, consumers will have the option of tooling along the open road or the open sky - in the same vehicle. Their brainchild, named "Destiny," is envisioned as a highway-capable personal air vehicle that can drive along the road, take to the air from local airports, and park in a household garage. Earlier this month, the team won the Consumer Product division of the MIT $1,000 competition - a warm-up for the $50K competition next spring. Dietrich says Destiny will be certified under the FAA's Light Sport Aircraft rule, which should reduce capital requirements and eventual price. Under this rule non-pilots can become Light Sport Pilots with as little as 20 hours of training and a valid driver's license.

"After a major redesign, three conceptual designs and 43 design iterations in AVL, I think we are finally nearing isolation of the outer mold line of our preliminary vehicle design," Dietrich says. He hopes to build a 1/5-scale wind tunnel model of the design during IAP to validate stall performance. "We have a very long road ahead, but it has been encouraging that many people from the business community seem to think that it is a road worth navigating," he says.

5. HUMANS AND TECHNOLOGY, PLANETARY PARACHUTES ON TAP FOR IAP

Professor Missy Cummings, director of the Humans and Automation Lab draws the Aero-Astro community's attention to a Humans and Technology Symposium that will take place January 23-27, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. in 33-116 as part of IAP. The weeklong symposium is planned to raise awareness of human-centered technology design, research methods, and practices. The goal of the symposium is to expose professionals and students from all disciplines to the benefits of human-centered research and practices. This symposium will also provide researchers and practitioners from various related fields such as Human Factors, Human-Computer Interaction, and Science and Technology, to gain an awareness of the states of the art, in an informal and collaborative environment. There is no enrollment limit and advance signup is not needed. For more information, email Stacey Scott at sdscott@mit.edu.

Also during IAP, Aero-Astro and the MIT Museum will cosponsor the program "Parachutes for Planetary Entry Systems" on Jan 20 9 a.m.-11 a.m. and 2 p.m.-4 p.m., in 33-206. Lead by Dr. Juan R. Cruz of NASA's Langley Research Center, the four-hour mini-course provides an introduction to the design, analysis, and qualification of parachutes for planetary entry systems. The lectures emphasize topics relevant to robotic missions, human precursor exploration missions, Earth sample return missions, and Earth qualification of parachute systems. A complete set of lecture notes will be provided, including an extensive bibliography. Enrollment is limited to 30: signup (by January 10) by contacting Marie Stuppard, 33-208, x3-2279, mas@mit.edu.

6. MARS "MINUTES OF TERROR" AT MIT MUSEUM

Speaking of the MIT Museum, curator Debbie Douglas invites all to attend the program "Six Minutes of Terror: The Mars Exploration Rovers Entry, Descent, and Landing," January 19 at 7:30 p.m. in the MIT Museum. Speaker will be Dr. Juan R. Cruz, Exploration Systems Engineering Branch, NASA Langley Research Center. In January 2004, NASA successfully placed two rovers on the surface of Mars. Before their scientific mission could start, the rovers had to survive "Six Minutes of Terror" - the Entry, Descent, and Landing sequence - without human intervention after a seven-month, 480 million kilometer trip. Using photographs, animations, videos, and flight data this talk will describe the design, development, and operation of the Mars Exploration Rovers' EDL system.

7. SPACESHIPONE PILOT TO SPEAK AT AIAA DINNER

The Annual AIAA Student Faculty Dinner will be held on February 17, 2006 at 6 p.m. This event offers the unique opportunity for faculty, staff, and students in the department to interact outside of an academic setting. This year's dinner features guest speaker SpaceShipOne Pilot Brian Binnie. Binnie piloted the second (and record setting) X-Prize flight. He has 21 years flight test experience including 20 years of naval service in the Strike-Fighter community. He has logged more than 4600 hours of flight time in 59 different aircraft, and is a licensed airline transport pilot. Students and faculty will receive invitations in the near future with all the details.

8. STUDENT FLYPAPER

Col. Pete Young reports that on December 14, MIT's Student Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics held its annual Paper Airplane Contest in the Zesiger Athletic Center. Sixty students, undergraduates and graduates, competed for best scores in distance, duration, and creativity. Sponsored this year by JetBlue Airways, the prizes presented to winners included free roundtrip tickets on JetBlue Airways. Col. Young says, "A good time was had by all, and thanks to hard work by the AIAA student section, led by Jon Gibbs, the event went smoothly." Jon invites all to see photos of the event that he's posted.

9. NEWS TO USE: AA EMAIL GROUPS

Several people recently have asked how to send emails to groups within the Aero-Astro Department. There are a number of Athena mailing lists that permit you to email select recipients (all are followed by @mit.edu):

• aa-all (includes sub-mailing lists aa-dept, aa-undergrad, aa-grad)
• aa-dept (includes aa-faculty and aa-staff)
• aa-faculty (includes the sub-mailing lists: aa-emeritus, aa-professors, aa-senior-lecturers, aa-senior-researchers, aa-visiting-profs)
• aa-staff (sub-mailing lists: aa-admin, aa-instructional, aa-postdocs, aa-research, aa-support, aa-union, aa-visitor, non-aero)
• aa-grad
• aa-undergrad

10. SPORTS REPORT: AA SOCCER TEAM CAPTURES TROPHY

The Aero-Astro Soccer Team completed its successful fall 2005 season of play with a rousing 2-1 victory over PhiDelts to capture the B+ trophy, reports grad student Tom McGuire. The team entered the playoffs as the seventh seed in a group of eight, but clawed and scratched its way past a skilled Economics team and withstood a potent attack by the Mechanical Engineering team to reach the final match. With the victory, the team earned the coveted IM championship t-shirts, a long-standing goal for the team, which has come close in the previous seasons, but always short. The coed intramural team includes grads, undergrads, and recently graduated alumni. "Thanks to all who made the season an enjoyable part of the MIT experience," says McGuire. Spring sports include ice hockey, volleyball, water polo, tennis, basketball, and more. Pictures of the team are posted here and here. Please contact Aero-Astro athletic coordinator Dan Kwon for more info, dankwon@mit.edu.

11. NEWS OFFICE SEEKS INTERESTING BREAK PLANS

MIT News Office staff writer Sasha Brown is seeking input for a Web stoy she is writing. An email from her reads, "I am searching for any interesting winter break plans for a story I am writing for the Web this week. Does anyone know of any students, faculty or staff who are planning something a little unique for this break? Any help you could give me would be much appreciated. Thanks." (Yes, we know something can't be "a little unique.") If you have any interesting ideas for Sasha, please email her directly at sashabro@mit.edu.

12. WEB FAVES

(If you have a favorite Web site that you'd like to share with the Department, send the URL to Bill Litant with a very brief explanation of why you like it.)

Science fiction of the 1950s spawned some fantastic, often fanciful, artwork; saucers outfitted with office furniture like Starcruiser C-57D of "Forbidden Planet," spacesuits like two-piece bathing suits with fishbowl helmets, sidearm blasters of every shape and size, lots of rubbery (and always angry) aliens, and, of course, huge, finned, atomic-powered rocket ships. If you enjoy covers of Amazing Stories, 1938-vintage deck plans of an envisioned 2038 spaceship, or a technical look, circa 1956, at the workings of an atomic spacecraft, Aero-Astro Visiting Professor Geoff Landis invites you to visit one of his favorite Web sites: "Atomic Rockets of the Space Patrol." Professor Landis says, "Winchell Chung Jr. has put together a set of Web pages with a comprehensive introduction to astronautics, with the goal of explaining the science and technology of such atomic rockets." Check it out... Willy Ley would approve.

Studies indicate that the lifespan of a typical Web page is on the order of six months - then it's taken down, the URL is changed, or it is content is significantly modified. One way to access vanished Web pages is the Waybackmachine. The site has archived more than 1 petabyte/40 billion Web pages dating back to 1996 and is growing by 20 terabytes a month. Just go to the site, type in a URL, and take a walk down memory lane. To get started, here's one from December 26, 1996.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE E-NEWS

Please share your news with the rest of the Aero-Astro community by contributing to the e-news. Awards, events, new research - it's all of interest. Send your suggestions to wlitant@mit.edu.