Life at Langley

By Langley Pre-College Interns, LaRC, VA

As the school year for most high school students has waned and the glimmer of freedom is shining brightly in the eyes of American adolescents, we here at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia have just begun what is sure to be the experience of a life time. Under the mentorship of the brightest and most innovative minds in scientific practice,  we have each settled into our new positions amongst the various research departments within the center. Topics ranging from aircraft fuselage load testing and atmospheric imagery web site design to space mission analysis will fill the entries in this blog throughout the summer.

During the opening days of our experience, we have been exposed to the logistics of working as a government researcher and all of the orientations, badging processes, and safety briefing that such entails. Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of our introduction over the last few days has been the incredible amount of substantial history that is embedded within the campus. Built in 1917, Langley is the oldest NASA field center and, as such, it plays a major role in the history of the organization as a whole. Several world class facilities at the center have also supported some of the most noted space exploration missions to date. The Langley Gantry facility that is currently used to study emergency landing scenarios of aerospace vehicles was once used my Neil Armstrong as he practiced the lunar landing procedures in conditions that were replicated using the same facility. The aircraft tire landing sled at the center is the fastest water-powered landing research sled in the world and sends tires speeding down its track at speeds over 230 miles/hour to replicate the stresses and environmental conditions that they must endure in real life landing situations.

One specific highlight of the orientation process was an opportunity to tour the National Transonic Facility. The facility manager gave each of the interns an upclose view of process of fabricating, preparing, and then testing scaled models of various aircraft (including well-known names such as the Boeing 777 and 787) in the wind tunnel to simulate performance of a given design in atmospheric conditions that they will be operated at in reality. Liquid nitrogen is used to produce the testing environment within the tunnel as well as for making for some excellent frozen Goldfish crackers for us to sample! The facility is well known as the largest cyrogenic, pressurized wind-tunnel in the western world and has been used to test shuttle prototypes for space missions.

This blog will serve as a means of communicating each of our unique experiences within our respective facilities and as an overview of the NASA Langley Inspire SSE as a whole. To that effect, I have included a brief summary of each intern's specific research project below (in alphebetical order).

Cody Dean - Beckley, West Virginia - Harvard University (fall 2010)

I am working at the NASA Combined Loads Testing (CoLT) Facility this summer under the direction of Mr. Marshall Rouse. Our facility focuses on testing aircraft fuselage cross sections, etc. under pressurized conditions. A large machine with five degrees of freedom is used to apply forces, or loads, to a specimen to record its reaction to the given condition. Tension, compression, and torsian stresses are placed on the object usuing hydralic actuators to analyze their effect using voltage based displacement sensors. I will be compiling data and utilizing  computer software to analyze the results of the tests I am currently helping conduct.

Katrina Paolini- Aiken, South Caroloina - Auburn University (fall 2010)

Katrina will be working in the Space Mission Analysis Branch of the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate with Julie Williams-Byrd, an electronics engineer at NASA Langley. She will be helping close out the Constellation program following its cancellation and assisting in looking into new technology that can be utilized on destinations such as asteroids, Lagrange points, Mars moon Phobos, and Mars.

Roman Ruiz-Esparza - Charlotte, North Carolina - North Carolina State University (fall 2010)

Roman is working in the Atmospheric Science Data Center. His project utilizes his previous experience in web development to upgrade an ASDC webpage from a static layout to a dynamic, intuitive interface. Categorically, the assignment is computer science work. Roman is optimistic and expects to finish ahead of the schedule set by his mentor, at which time he may dive deeper into the work load of the ASDC

Sonal Shah- Lexington, Kentucky - University of Kentucky (fall 2010)

Sonal's mentor, Dr. Stephen Hales, is a research materials engineer.  She will be taking,welding samples, re-polishing them and taking 200x magified images at necessary locations to look at differences in grain size. She will also use Keller's etch (bright field) and Barker's etch (cross-polarized) images of un-mounted specimens. Methodology from the America Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards for mean linear intercept will be utilized on these images to determine the location-dependent grain size and morphology in the welds.

Juliana Wu-Yorktown, Virginia -Massachusetts Institute of Technology (fall 2010)

Juliana is working in the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA Langley. She is working with Computer Aided Design (CAD) design software. She utilizes her creative abilities and effectively integrates them with the scientific design process and will be working with advanced schematic planning throughout her time at the center.

From all of the INSPIRE pre-college interns here at NASA Langley, we wish you a great summer and sincerely hope that you enjoy reading about our experiences thoughout the next two months.

(Note: To read more blogs and to leave comments, go to the OLC Summer Interns' Blog link at the top of the left column. JG)