THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 27, 1995 TAG: 9509270416
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Fly to the moon in six hours? Soar silently in ``lightcars,'' powered by invisible microwaves or pulses of laser light? Travel in trains as fast as, or faster than, today's airplanes?
Within the next 20 years, some or all of these ways of getting from here to there may be available, according to speakers Tuesday at NASA Langley Research Center's ``Transportation Beyond 2000'' workshop.
In the most far-ranging of the first-day talks of the three-day conference, Steven C. Crow described a future discipline that he called ``cybernautics.'' According to Crow, director of the Space Engineering Research Center in Tucson, Ariz., computers and aircraft will one day merge as one. Given the extremely rapid increase in computer power and speed, he contended, that day is not far off.
``Computers will emerge as birds, as flying machines,'' Crow predicted. ``Central processors are starved for information. They will need to acquire data the way we do, by moving through space. That's transportation.''
Crow described the marriage of what he called the ``culture of mechanism'' with the ``culture of information.'' To navigate, the computer-airplane hybrids - increasingly automated but directed by humans on the ground - will call upon the worldwide network of orbiting satellites known as the global positioning system.
``Think of flying carpets. It's that kind of thing,'' Crow said. ``The future of aviation is one that puts the pilots where they should be: on the ground.''
Other speakers were scheduled to discuss ``hypercars,'' ultralight ``computers with wheels'' made from space-age composite materials and powered by electric drivetrains. Also on the agenda are so-called lightcars, vehicles designed to use energy beams - lasers or continuous microwave bursts - to coast the skies as easily as today's autos cruise interstate highways.
Engineers are considering designs for high-speed trains that would use electromagnetic energy to boost train speeds to hundreds of miles per hour. In addition, rocket propulsion systems on the drawing boards could dramatically reduce cost and travel times to orbit, as well as to the inner and outer planets of the solar system.
Ultimately, humanity more than technology will drive transportation's future, says Barbara C. Richardson, a research scientist at the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute.
On Tuesday, Richardson cited Census Bureau data that indicate a growing elderly population, job growth in the suburbs and the accelerating entry of mothers with young children into the work force. Architects of next-century personal and mass transit must consider such factors as they devise their blueprints, she said.
Development of new transportation systems should take into account a radically changing workplace, argued speaker Duncan B. Sutherland, CEO of the Williamsburg-based Sutherland Group Inc. Just because something can be done does not necessarily mean it should be done, he said - or built.
``We're talking about the future of some amazing technologies,'' Sutherland said. ``The challenge is to create shared meaning. Meaning is what life is all about.''
The in-house workshop aims to inform and inspire Langley researchers, according to conference co-organizer Robert McKinley, an aerospace engineer. Some of the discussed technologies could end up at Langley for extensive evaluation and testing.
Some breakthroughs may even come from Langley scientists, several of whom will be discussing their own transportation-related projects.
``The idea is to generate new points of departure,'' McKinley said. ``We're trying to get our folks to look at automobiles, trains, whatever else Langley could contribute to.''
The technology workshop comes just as concern mounts over involuntary furloughs, at NASA and elsewhere in the government. Unless President Clinton and Congress resolve differences over the federal budget, the government could run out of money by midnight Saturday, the end of the fiscal year.
Lab doors at Langley could be padlocked and no researchers permitted on the grounds. Without money, even work on the most promising advance will come to a screeching halt. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by NASA LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER
A computer-generated image of a 21st-century successor to the space
shuttle. The shuttle would be easier to maintain and cheaper to
operate.
by CNB