Q&A 10 URBAN AIR MOBILITY 14 NASA’S NEW FRONTIERS 28 NASA’s Bridenstine on lunar planning Coping with complexity Next probe goes to Titan or to comet In 1921, an Army pilot dropped insecticide on crops, starting a dashing new profession that might or might not survive the age of drones. PAGE 20 TOMORROW’s Crop dustERS JUNE 2019 | A publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org NEWAWARDS$500K UP TO ,1129$7( 75$16)250285)8785( R&D FUNDING PROGRAM 7KH1DWLRQDO5HFRQQDLVVDQFH2IÀFH'LUHFWRU·V,QQRYDWLRQ,QLWLDWLYH ',, 3URJUDPIXQGVFXWWLQJHGJHVFLHQWLÀFUHVHDUFKLQDKLJKULVNKLJKSD\RII environment to discover innovative concepts and creative ideas that transform RYHUKHDGLQWHOOLJHQFHFDSDELOLWLHVDQGV\VWHPVIRUIXWXUHQDWLRQDOVHFXULW\LQWHOOLJHQFH QHHGV7KHSURJUDPVHHNVWKHEULJKWHVWPLQGVDQGEUHDNWKURXJKWHFKQRORJLHVIURP LQGXVWU\DFDGHPLDQDWLRQDOODERUDWRULHVDQG86JRYHUQPHQWDJHQFLHV 9LVLWWKHZHEVLWHIRU%URDG$JHQF\$QQRXQFHPHQWDQG *RYHUQPHQW6RXUFHV6RXJKW$QQRXQFHPHQWUHTXLUHPHQWV 703.808.2769 www.nro.gov/About-the-NRO/Business-Opportunities FEATURES | June 2019 MORE AT aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org 14 28 36 20 Designing for the NASA managers Pitching urban commuter face “agonizing” innovative ideas Crop dusting market choice to government into the future Lithium ion batteries Those in charge of Aerospace give engineers the agency’s entrepreneurs can Pilots in the daring profession face fl exibility but also New Frontiers series avoid common pitfalls challenges from drones as aerial present a modeling must decide between by practicing their application enters its second century. challenge. Here’s how exploring a comet or technique. Vahana’s designers Saturn’s Titan moon. By Jan Tegler coped. By Amanda Miller By Adam Hadhazy By Keith Button aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | JUNE 2019 | 1 19–22 AUGUST 2019 INDIANAPOLIS, IN EXPOSITION AND SPONSORSHIP Promote and grow your business at the world’s only conference event to showcase both aeronautics and space propulsion and energy technologies in a single venue that is unmatched by any competitive event. SALES & RECRUITING PROMOTION Tap into a highly-skilled professional aerospace Interact with over 1,500+ workforce representing the participants through best of the industry from top-level branding and academia, mid-career, and marketing opportunities. executive level. NETWORKING Connect with thought leaders, industry influencers, decision makers, entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, technologists, educators and students. GET STARTED TODAY! aiaa.org/exhibitpropulsionenergy IN THIS ISSUE AEROSPACE★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ AMERICA JUNE 2019, VOL. 57, NO. 6 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Keith Button Ben Iannotta Keith has written for C4ISR Journal and Hedge Fund Alert, where he broke [email protected] news of the 2007 Bear Stearns scandal that kicked off the global credit crisis. ASSOCIATE EDITOR PAGE 14 Karen Small [email protected] STAFF REPORTER Cat Hofacker [email protected] Adam Hadhazy EDITOR, AIAA BULLETIN Christine Williams Adam reports on astrophysics and technology. His work has appeared in Discover and New Scientist magazines. [email protected] PAGE 28 EDITOR EMERITUS Jerry Grey CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Keith Button, Adam Hadhazy, Robert van der Linden, Amanda Miller, Amanda Miller Jan Tegler, Debra Werner, Frank H. Winter Amanda is a freelance reporter and editor based near Denver with 20 years of experience at weekly and daily publications. John Langford AIAA PRESIDENT PAGES 9, 36 Daniel L. Dumbacher PUBLISHER Rodger S. Williams DEPUTY PUBLISHER ADVERTISING [email protected] Jan Tegler Jan covers a variety of subjects, including defense, for publications internationally. ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN He’s a frequent contributor to Defense Media Network/Faircount Media Group and THOR Design Studio | thor.design is the author of the book “B-47 Stratojet: Boeing’s Brilliant Bomber.” PAGE 20 MANUFACTURING AND DISTRIBUTION Association Vision | associationvision.com LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE Ben Iannotta, [email protected] Debra Werner A frequent contributor to Aerospace America, Debra is also a West Coast correspondent for Space News. PAGE 64 Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly except in August by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 200 Reston, VA 20191-5807 [703-264-7500]. Subscription DEPARTMENTS rate is 50% of dues for AIAA members (and is not deductible therefrom). Nonmember subscription price: U.S., $200; foreign, $220. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send 4 Editor’s Notebook address changes and subscription orders to Aerospace America, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 9 10 at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA, 20191-5807, 5 Letter to the Editor Attn: A.I.A.A. Customer Service. Periodical postage Trending Q&A paid at Reston, Virginia, and at additional mailing NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Administrator Jim Bridenstine offi ces. Copyright 2019 by the American Institute of 7 Flight Path is coming together on NASA’s moon shot Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offi ce. 8 AeroPuzzler 42 64 47 AIAA Bulletin Opinion Trajectories Making a place in the market Co-founder of satellite 62 Looking Back for electric aircraft propulsion spinoff aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | JUNE 2019 | 3 EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK PUBLIC POLICY The moon is visible just above the Earth’s limb in this photo shot The audacity of 2024 from the International Space Station, whose ver the next 16 months, we’ll learn whether setting a bold, but probably unrealistic, date of solar array can be 2024 for a U.S. return to the moon was folly or a stroke of genius by the Trump administration. glimpsed at the left. In the genius column, this aggressive schedule could be the only way to push the lunar NASA hardware to the point of “too big to cancel” before a new administration has a chance to rethink NASA’s entire strategy on Inauguration Day in January 2021 or 2025. OIn the folly column, the 2024 goal could backfi re as follows: Rushing could increase the odds of a critical test failure. An ambivalent audience in Congress or a corner of the executive branch might balk at supplying tax dollars to try again. An example of this is the X-33 single-stage-to-orbit demonstrator that was supposed to clear the technical path for a successor to the space shuttle. The wall of its liquid hydrogen tank peeled apart after a 1999 ground test. That turned out to be the coup de grâce for the program, and the X-33 never fl ew. This is the point in the conversation when someone invariably declares, “That’s why we test.” True, but there are reasons everyone does high-fi ves when requirements are met or exceeded. One of them is that it’s harder to defund success. In fact, that knowledge could be what drives the infamously risk-adverse culture within U.S. government space programs. Huge risks tend to be unacceptable until we perceive that our way of life is at stake. That’s why the pace of American aerospace innovation during World War II and the Cold War amazes us today. In the folly column could be an overestimation of the ability to shift that culture without such a driver. It’s understandable to want NASA to return to the “light this candle” culture of the 1960s and to be more like the Russian managers who put the Soyuz rockets back to work just eight weeks after a harrowing launch abort. Desire is easy. Change is harder. It’s not at all clear that top-down pressure from the political leadership can accomplish this. Today, careers, the lives of colleagues and dollars are at stake, but not the future of the nation. For sure, Election Day 2020 will be a good moment to take stock of the Trump administration’s per- formance on many fronts, including the proposed lunar return, even if that won’t be a voting issue for most citizens. Where matters stand could well determine whether Americans touch the moon again. Ben Iannotta, editor-in-chief, [email protected] 4 | JUNE 2019 | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org LETTER TO THE EDITOR Aiming for small, “tough” constellations dimension of information warfare) could indeed operate against an enemy force with impunity.” I pointed out that the system described by Budiansky, al- though exceedingly powerful and destructive, was inherently brittle by virtue of the brittleness of the space systems upon which it depended. The brittleness of our space elements was a consequence of decisions made long ago. For reasons of utility and economy, the space elements were developed according to what I called a “big iron” architectural philosophy, produc- ing big, expensive satellites that were launched from big, soft platforms and were controlled by big, complex, soft centers. I suggested that future developments should aim for pro- liferated and dispersed constellations of small space elements, launched from dispersed sites, and controlled from dispersed ground elements. These could be combined into “tough,” as hank you for the article “Controlling space” in the April opposed to “brittle,” systems that could deploy with, and be 2019 Aerospace America. operated by, an expeditionary force in a theater of operations. In the September 2007 issue of the Armed Forces Journal, I wrote an article that covered some of same William L. Shields issues that you raised. In my article, “America’s brittle AIAA associate fellow Tspace systems,” my point of departure was Stephen Budiansky’s Retired Air Force brigadier general 2004 book, “Air Power,” in which he asserted that “this new kind Tucson, Arizona of air power (using the third dimension of space and the fourth [email protected] AIAA Journals are now all online-only! Check out the easy-to-access articles today! AEROSPACE RESEARCH CENTRAL arc.aiaa.org aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | JUNE 2019 | 5 19-0236-Journals Ad for AA-OneSixth.indd 1 2/12/19 10:48 AM 6–10 JANUARY 2020 ORLANDO, FL CALL FOR PAPERS The 2020 AIAA SciTech Forum will cover the science, technologies, and policies that are shaping the future of aviation and space.