[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 21, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E416-E417]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


               TRIBUTE TO THE NASA GLENN RESEARCH CENTER

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 21, 2001

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of 
my colleagues an article published in the Continental March 2001 
magazine that highlights the achievements of the NASA Glenn Research 
Center over the past 60 years. Revolutionary advancements in aerospace 
and aviation technologies have been developed at the NASA Glenn 
Research Center (GRC), which is located in my congressional district in 
Cleveland, OH. This article highlights Glenn's contributions to 
aviation, which include research to create quieter, nonpolluting 
airplanes. In addition, it details the GRC's work in developing a power 
system used on the International Space Station and how their research 
is used to improve commercial products in the United States.
  NASA Glenn Research Center continues to play an instrumental role in 
maintaining our Nation's leadership in aeronautics and aerospace 
technology. In the future the center will continue to make 
groundbreaking discoveries that will improve both space travel and life 
on Earth.

                   [From the Continental, March 2001]

                         Reaching for the Stars

                          (By Todd Wilkinson)

       On airy moonlit nights, stargazers in the Northern 
     Hemisphere may notice what appears to be a glowing white 
     speck making regular passes through the sky. It's not a UFO 
     they are seeing or even the pulses of a meteor shower. That 
     piece of metallic glitter is actually a massive human 
     stepping-stone to the cosmos--the new International Space 
     Station--orbiting 220 miles above the earth and taking shape 
     as a base camp for the future exploration of our solar 
     system.
       Back on the ground, scientists and biomedical researchers 
     from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 
     are paying special attention to the space station's evolving 
     construction from laboratories located in Cleveland. That's 
     right, Cleveland. As in Ohio. The city pressed up against the 
     southern shore of Lake Erie.
       Surprising to many is that quietly over the past half-
     century some of the most revolutionary advancements in space 
     and aviation technology have been developed at Lewis Field. 
     The Glenn Research Center here, named in honor of the 
     pioneering astronaut and U.S. senator, John Glenn, is perhaps 
     the most unsung of NASA's 10 major campuses. Less known than 
     the Johnson Space Center in Houston or the Kennedy launch 
     pads at Cape Canaveral, Fla., or the Jet Propulsion 
     Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., NASA Glenn is, nonetheless, 
     playing a pivotal role in transforming the agency's 11th and 
     most novel facility--the space station--from a pie-in-the-sky 
     dream into a symbol of 21st-century ingenuity. And it is 
     giving Cleveland and numerous partner businesses and local 
     universities a tangible connection to the frontier of space.
       The NASA Glenn Campus is a labyrinth of six wind tunnels 
     and more than 150 buildings, along with a beehive of 
     laboratories. Since the early 1940s, around the time America 
     entered World War II, the research facilities have been 
     central to the development of jet engines that are today the 
     foundation of commercial and military aviation. But in 1961, 
     when President John F. Kennedy set U.S. sights on the moon, 
     the laboratories also became nurseries for rocket propulsion 
     in the race to space, notes Donald Campbell, director of the 
     Glenn Research Center.
       Better than any political leader in the country, Senator 
     Glenn has understood the dividends accrued from public 
     investment in technology. During recent heated debates in 
     Congress over funding for NASA and concerns about cost 
     overruns that have dogged the space station, it was Glenn who 
     urged colleagues to support research and development in 
     emerging technologies. If the United States is to maintain a 
     competitive edge over other nations, he argued, it must 
     sustain and nurture institutions like NASA.
       Campbell says NASA Glenn channels much of its research-
     driven technology into U.S. industry, enabling major advances 
     in commercial products like jet engines and communications 
     satellites. During the 1970s and 1980s, NASA spent about $200 
     million on turbine engine technologies developed by Glenn and 
     its commercial partners. In turn, that investment yielded 
     billions of dollars in benefits for the U.S. economy, through 
     job creation and spin-off technologies, including the 
     eventual production of the General Electric 90 engine--the 
     workhorse of many planes. ``Engine propulsion technology has 
     historically led the development of new generations of 
     aircraft design, and that shows no signs of changing,'' says 
     Joe Shaw, chief of NASA Glenn's ultraefficient engine 
     technology program. ``More and more we are seeing a cross 
     pollination of ideas between the dual missions of NASA--its 
     support of aeronautics for commercial and military purposes 
     and exploration of space.''
       Likewise, the quest to build more powerful and efficient 
     spacecraft reaped incredible dividends. ``It's hard to tell 
     what could come out of our space research that will affect 
     our lives on the ground,'' Shaw says. ``I don't think anybody 
     with the Apollo program knew it would lead to the 
     proliferation of personal laptop computers and digital 
     wristwatches and microbiological sensors.''
       Not far off on the horizon, Shaw says, are aircraft that 
     will burn dramatically cleaner fuel, reducing carbon dioxide 
     and nitrogen oxide emissions that contribute to global 
     warming and smog. Those same planes will boast engines that 
     are barely audible to the human ear on the ground once the 
     planes are beyond airport boundaries. Yet the biggest 
     advancement that could arrive in less than a generation will 
     be fleets of ``smart airplanes,'' whose computer systems 
     adjust engines in flight to make them fly more efficiently. 
     And where commercial flights are concerned, efficiency 
     results in the need for less fuel. Ultimately, that would 
     mean better bargains for travelers. An ambitious goal of NASA 
     Glenn scientists is to reduce the travel time to the Far East 
     and Europe by half within the next 25 years, but to also make 
     it possible at today's ticket prices.
       Last September, R & D Magazine named three research teams 
     based at Glenn winners of its prestigious R&D 100 Award, 
     known within the industry as the ``Nobel Prize of applied 
     research.'' The projects that attracted global attention 
     involved the development of superstrong titanium alumnide 
     sheet metal used in aircraft bodies; advancements with PMR 
     (Polymerization of Monomer Reactants) to give aircraft longer 
     shelf lives; and the application of GENOA software that has 
     enabled Boeing and GE aircraft engines to save millions of 
     dollars improving the cutting-edge 777 aircraft engine. Since 
     the early 1960s, Glenn researchers have claimed nearly 80 of 
     the 110 R&D 100 Awards given to NASA projects.
       Without question, the most awe-inspiring projects are those 
     dealing with space travel. By his own admission, John 
     Dunning, a 30-year NASA veteran and manager of space station 
     support at Glenn, isn't a man prone to spontaneous gleeful 
     outbursts. But last November, when Space Shuttle Endeavour 
     lifted off from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, 
     Dunning and his Glenn colleagues let out a collective whoop. 
     In her belly, Endeavour carried solar panel arrays and 
     advanced nickel-hydrogen batteries that are today providing 
     the power essential to making the International Space Station 
     operational. Without the electrical juice generated by the 
     photovoltaic panels and stored in super batteries, astronauts 
     would be whistling in the dark, says Dunning.
       Much of the transportable power grid, built and tested in 
     cooperation with a handful of private aerospace companies, 
     originated on drawing boards at the Glenn laboratories. Prior 
     to shuttle launches in October, November and January, a 
     specially designed radiator that removes waste heat from the 
     station was tested in the Space Power Facility, the world's 
     largest space environment simulation chamber, at NASA Glenn's 
     Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. ``Before these recent 
     shuttle missions delivered the power components, the space 
     station crew had been confined to a service module, because 
     most of the structure was uninhabitable,'' Dunning says. 
     ``With the power systems up and running, the volume of space 
     available to crews will significantly improve by about a 
     factor of three, and the amount of consumable electricity 
     will increase from four kilowatts to 24 kilowatts.''
       A future principal component of the station's power plant, 
     being developed by NASA Glenn, could be the ``flyway energy 
     storage system,'' which functions like a gyroscope motor 
     spinning at 60,000 revolutions per minute. When the space 
     station arrays are illuminated by the sun, the flywheel 
     functions like a mechanical battery, converting motion into 
     usable energy and vice versa. During periods of orbit when 
     the station is shaded from sunlight, the wheel is turned into 
     a generator that makes electricity to

[[Page E417]]

     power the life support system and science equipment. 
     Scientists note that at full operating speed the flywheel 
     rotor's linear velocity is two-and-one-half times the speed 
     of sound (1,875 miles per hour). If the wheel itself were 
     allowed to spin without meeting resistance, it would go on 
     for more than 12 hours.
       ``The flywheel energy storage system represents a 
     revolutionary step in energy storage technology,'' says 
     Raymond Beach, NASA Glenn's team leader for flywheel 
     development. He sees the flywheel as a potential long-term 
     alternative for chemical batteries, which don't last as long 
     and which generate waste. ``The process is very efficient,'' 
     he points out. ``More than 85 percent of the energy put into 
     the wheel comes out.''
       NASA believes that in the coming decades similar solar-
     powered generators could have applications on earth and on 
     Mars. When the Mars Surveyor Lander mission reaches the Red 
     Planet, two pilot Glenn projects--the Mars Array Technology 
     Experiment (MATE) and the Dust Accumulation and Removal 
     Technology (DART)--will explore the feasibility of producing 
     oxygen propellant from the Martian atmosphere and will test 
     whether power-generating solar cells can function amid 
     extreme cold and notorious Martian dust storms. ``Because of 
     the dust, the cold temperatures and the varying light 
     spectrum, the best solar cell for our `gas station on Mars' 
     might be one that we wouldn't consider using in our space 
     solar arrays,'' says NASA Glenn Project Manager Cosmo 
     Baraona, who is overseeing the experiments.
       Solar cells designed at Glenn have already performed better 
     than expected with the Pathfinder and Sojourner Rover, but 
     David Scheiman, a researcher at the Ohio Aerospace Institute 
     in Cleveland, a partner of Glenn, says it is uncertain if 
     those cells will work over the estimated five years it will 
     take to get a human to and from Mars.
       Through its Microgravity Science Division, Glenn is NASA's 
     star performer with microgravity experiments involving 
     combustion and fluid physics. Aside from its history with 
     spacecraft and jet engines, Glenn has bolstered Cleveland's 
     reputation as a hub for biomedicine. ``We are fortunate to 
     reside in a region with some of the best medical research 
     institutions in the country and a growing biomedical industry 
     base,'' says Campbell.
       At the forefront are researchers like Rafat Ansari, a 
     groundbreaking physicist. ``My personal interest is with the 
     human eye,'' he says. According to Ansari, our eyes are not 
     only windows to the soul, but also windows to the human body, 
     reflecting the health and function of vital chemical 
     processes. They are also places where physicians can look to 
     better understand the risks of exposure to radiation during 
     deep space travel to destinations like Mars. ``When light 
     passes from the cornea into the retina, it also passes 
     through nearly every tissue type found in the body,'' Ansari 
     says. ``By studying those tissues, we can look for evidence 
     of certain conditions from one's cholesterol level to the 
     formation of cataracts to the potential for Alzheimer's 
     disease to diabetes.''
       Ansari began his career with NASA 13 years ago. His 
     fascination with eyes started when his father developed 
     cataracts. It led him to investigate the etiology of 
     cataracts and the risks associated with certain diseases. 
     Astronauts can be especially vulnerable because increased 
     exposure to radiation associated with deep space travel may 
     accelerate the growth of cataracts and macular degeneration.
       Ansari and a team of Glenn researchers are working with the 
     federal Food and Drug Administration to develop a screening 
     process for diabetes. Another project at the Glenn 
     laboratories involved development of an apparatus in 
     partnership with the National Eye Institute, located at the 
     National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. It would have 
     applications not only on Mars but also in rural parts of the 
     world where there is a niche to fill with telemedicine. The 
     patient or, in the case of space travel, the astronauts would 
     wear a specially designed helmet with eye-examining goggles 
     connected to special sensors monitoring the heart in real 
     time. The apparatus could detect health abnormalities as 
     explorers walk across the Martian surface. But long before 
     the first human mission is sent to the fourth planet from the 
     sun, Ansari would like to see such mobile devices used in 
     remote locales on earth where medicine is unavailable.
       In the years ahead, the facility bearing Senator Glenn's 
     name promises to claim its own prominent place on the journey 
     of human discovery. ``This year, as we celebrate the Glenn 
     center's 60th anniversary, all of us can look back in pride 
     at our outstanding accomplishments that have helped propel 
     NASA and U.S. industry to new horizons,'' adds Campbell. 
     ``And no matter where that next horizon is found, Glenn's 
     pioneers and innovators will make it possible for us to 
     travel beyond it. Ultimately, we want the public to benefit 
     from what we do.''

     

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