LiveChat Roundup: Dec. 15, 2011

By Jim Gerard, INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC, Fla.

From Wilbur Wright (see last week's LiveChat) to the cutting edge of aeronautics technology, the INSPIRE LiveChat covers it all! Last night's chat with Dr. Thomas Edwards, Associate Director from Ames Research Center, led students through the current research being done to produce safer, cleaner, faster, and quieter aircraft. While much of this research is being conducted using scale models in wind tunnels, a growing segment of testing takes place in the computer utilizing computational fluid dynamics (CFD). 88 students were on hand to hear this informative talk, and to ask questions of our speaker.

Next week, Dryden Flight Research Center's Al Bowers will take us through the science and physics of flight. Sign up now on the Discussion Board. We'll take the next couple weeks off to give our subject matter experts a little break over the holidays, but we will host a special chat on Tuesday, December 27 at 1pm CT. This special chat will host INSPIRE alumni students who will talk about "Life After INSPIRE". Sign up for this special chat on the Discussion Board as well.