NAVIGATION 16 OPINION 30 AEROPUZZLER 8 Quantum physics could get us to Mars Why the U.S. will go back to the moon Take the Frisbee challenge OCTOBER 2018 | A publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org 7–9 MAY 2019 LAUREL, MD The AIAA Defense and Security Forum brings together the contractor, acquisition, and R&D communities for classified discussions of critical technical, programmatic, and policy topics in a SECRET/NoFORN unbiased, nonpartisan environment. Participate in the 2019 technical briefings by submitting an abstract on one of the following topics: › Computing Systems & Cyber Security › Strategic Missile Systems - Ground Based & › Countermeasures Sea Based Deterrent › › Directed Energy Weapons Survivability › › Estimation, Guidance, Navigation and Advanced Prototypes Control › System and Decision Analysis for National › Hypersonic Systems and Technologies Security › › Innovative Concepts and Technologies Tactical Missiles › › Missile Defense Weapon System Operational Performance › › Modeling and Simulation of Warhead Effects Weapon System Performance Analysis, Modeling & Simulation › Robotic and Unmanned Weapon Systems › Weapon System Test and Evaluation › Space Systems Abstracts due 20 November 2018 defense.aiaa.org FEATURES | October 2018 MORE AT aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org 16 30 38 22 Timing it Returning Protecting just right to the moon commercial Flying with geared aircraft Quantum navigation A space historian looks turbofan engines holds the promise of at what got the United A cybersecurity radically reducing the States there the fi rst strategist examines Pratt & Whitney is the fi rst time it takes engineers time and the future of what it will take to and scientists to government-sponsored manufacturer to produce them on expand the aviation communicate with spacefl ight. safety culture to the such a scale, and industry is watching spacecraft in deep cyber realm. how the company is handling the space. By John M. Logsdon problems that have cropped up. By James Vasatka By Amanda Miller By Keith Button On the cover: Geared turbofan engine in test cell Image credit: Pratt & Whitney aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | OCTOBER 2018 | 1 7–11 JANUARY 2019 SAN DIEGO, CA EXHIBIT AND SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE! Position your brand to 4,000+ attendees › Network with key leaders › Influence the industry › Grow your business RESERVE NOW! scitech.aiaa.org/corporate IN THIS ISSUE AEROSPACE★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ AMERICA OCTOBER 2018, VOL. 56, NO. 9 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 22 Karen Small [email protected] STAFF REPORTER Tom Risen Amanda Miller [email protected] Amanda is a freelance reporter and editor based near Denver with 20 years EDITOR, AIAA BULLETIN Christine Williams of experience at weekly and daily publications. PAGE 16 [email protected] EDITOR EMERITUS Jerry Grey CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Keith Button, Amanda Miller, Debra Werner Robert van der Linden, A frequent contributor to Aerospace America, Debra is also a West Coast Debra Werner, correspondent for Space News. Frank H. Winter PAGES 64 John Langford AIAA PRESIDENT Daniel L. Dumbacher PUBLISHER DEPARTMENTS Rodger S. Williams DEPUTY PUBLISHER ADVERTISING Katie Taplett, 202-904-0782 [email protected] AEROPUZZLER [email protected] Get a Frisbee and tackle the next challenge. ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN 8 THOR Design Studio | thor.design MANUFACTURING AND DISTRIBUTION Association Vision | associationvision.com 9 TRENDING LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE Satellite imagery of Hurricane Florence Ben Iannotta, [email protected] Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly except in August by the American Institute of Aeronautics 4 Editor’s Notebook and Astronautics, Inc., at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 10 12 200 Reston, VA 20191-5807 [703-264-7500]. Subscription 7 Flight Path rate is 50% of dues for AIAA members (and is not deductible Q & A Case Study therefrom). Nonmember subscription price: U.S., $200; Hiroshi Yamakawa, Making aerostats foreign, $220. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send 43 AIAA Bulletin president of the Japan available to those with address changes and subscription orders to Aerospace Aerospace Exploration smaller budgets America, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Agency at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA, 20191-5807, 58 Career Opportunities Attn: A.I.A.A. Customer Service. Periodical postage paid at Reston, Virginia, and at additional mailing offi ces. Copyright 2018 by the American Institute of 62 Looking Back 62 Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. Looking Back The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA Historic events in 64 in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offi ce. aerospace, including Trajectories Apollo 7’s mission in 1968 SSL’s technical director for the robotic servicing of geosynchronous satellites aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | OCTOBER 2018 | 3 EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK SPACE RESEARCH NASA Quantum physics and the International Space Station resident Ronald Reagan, in his 1984 State of the Union Address, promised that a space station would Business bring “quantum leaps” in a host of research areas. He meant quantum as in signifi cant, not as in the decisions may play applied physics experiment due to unfold shortly in the International Space Station’s Cold Atom a part in future research onboard Laboratory [See “Quantum Promises,” Page 16]. the International Reagan’s speech illustrates how hard it is to predict the return on investments from space research, Space Station. Por to foresee the research that creative human beings will conceive. Our markets here on Earth aren’t yet teeming with products that “could be only manufactured in space,” as Reagan predicted. Who could have guessed in 1984 that the station would be a venue for quantum physics research that could point to a whole new way of performing deep space navigation? The future of ISS after 2024 will probably be just as hard to predict, even if NASA and its international partners succeed at transitioning this $80 billion conglomeration of modules and living space to the control of a private entity of some kind. One open question is just how much autonomy that private entity would be granted to apply market prin- ciples to the future of ISS. Congress and NASA have constrained the conversation in at least one important way. The “NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017” envisions NASA becoming “one of many customers of a low-Earth orbit non-govern- mental human space fl ight enterprise.” That sounds like a call for an independent enterprise, except that the station would remain a “human space fl ight enterprise.” A similar constraint is refl ected in NASA’s congressionally mandated “International Space Station Transition Report,” released in March. NASA lays down eight “core princi- ples” for the transition, four of which call directly or by inference for expanding or continuing human space fl ight. This language sounds a lot like offering to privatize a factory so long as the new owner agrees to keep all the workers. We need to remember that we’re living in an age of robotics and artifi cial intelligence. Today’s roles for astronauts on ISS might not apply to tomorrow, depending on how one answers the following philosophical question: Should the astronauts on ISS after 2024 be seen as space explorers or space workers? If they are workers, then business judgment must kick in or the business will be short-lived. A business leader would not care that “astronauts have continuously lived aboard the ISS for over 17 years,” as the NASA transition report gushes. He or she would need to see the business case for continued human occupation and by how many astronauts. Successful businesses do not keep workers on production lines, in coal mines or on space stations for the sake of tradition. And then there’s the mix of research to consider. Will that be decided by how many dollars customers are Ben Iannotta, willing to pay? By the likelihood of a return on investment? Or must the mix cater to the government’s defi nition editor-in-chief, of what “ultimately benefi ts people on Earth,” to use the NASA report’s language? [email protected] These are big questions without easy answers. It’s possible that initiatives like the quantum research in the Cold Atom Lab could be squeezed out by those with deeper pockets and better odds of a return on investment. That’s a bad thing if one’s goal is to open up deep space with fi ndings from this lab. But it could be a good thing if, for example, Parkinson’s disease lies in your future and the entity with the deeper pockets fi nds a treatment because of its research on ISS. Hard choices like this could lie ahead if the market for space research turns as red hot as many hope. ★ 4 | OCTOBER 2018 | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org CORRECTION 1 Three of the photos on the Looking Back pages in the September issue were placed next to the wrong dates. Here are the correct placements: 1 Sept. 15-16, 1943 Britain makes the fi rst operational use of its 12,000-pound bomb when a Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster drops one over the Dortmund-Ems canal in Germany. A.J. Jackson, Avro Aircraft Since 1908, p.360. 2 Sept. 20, 1943 The de Havilland D.H. 100 prototype turbojet-powered Vampire single-seat fi ghter makes its fi rst fl ight at Hatfi eld, Hertfordshire, England. A.J. 2 Jackson, De Havilland Aircraft Since 1909, p. 423. 3 Sept. 26, 1968 The Ling-Temco-Vaught A7D Corsair 2 aircraft makes its fi rst fl ight, by Robert E. Rostine, the company’s experimental test pilot. In this fl ight, the 3 Corsair is fl own to Mach 0.94 and 6,096 meters.