NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Jim Hodges

When NASA's aim in aeronautics was called "fundamental," many looked at the concept as being limiting. They saw a ceiling where once the sky was no limit.

Jaiwon Shin, the agency's associate administrator for aeronautics, sees the fundamentals as an "engine that will make everything happen," he said Wednesday at an all-hands meeting at the Reid Conference Center.

That engine, he added, has to be fed with new concepts and ideas "to propel and fund more new work, based on good research results, that we can present and argue for more money."

He's aware of the limiting power of the budget, and with that in mind, he acknowledged that the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) is "coming out of a long drought. Getting new money hasn't happened to NASA aeronautics for a long time."

More money is coming to NASA aeronautics, says Jaiwon Shin, because those working with the directorate are returning value through research. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith.

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NASA budget projections beyond fiscal year 2010 show an annual increase of more than $60 million beyond a $450 million base.

The reasons sat before Shin.

"The fruit that we are harvesting has been in the works for years," he told the assembly. "You are the ones who have been working and delivering. There was no shortcut."

When Shin first visited Langley as the assistant administrator for aeronautics, "I challenged all of you to become world class persons," he said Wednesday.

"I want you to be the technical authority in your area," Shin said at that May 16, 2008, meeting. … I want you to say something and everybody listens to you. Everybody stops what they're talking about and listens to you. Isn't that what being the best in the world is about?"

He came back on October 28.

"The second time I visited your center, I challenged you to do good, solid technical reports," Shin said. "There is no way to bring more money to NASA aeronautics without delivering good, solid research."

He was back Wednesday with good news.

"(This time) I'm very happy to report to you that you have done so," he said. "You did it. Some of the people in ARMD at headquarters, including myself, contributed, but we're just bureaucrats there."

Shin stopped for a second and chuckled to himself.

"Actual results that we could use to make an argument on good solid technical plans that we put forward to our key stakeholders all came from you folks," he said.

Much of the additional money is allocated to an Environmentally Responsible Aircraft program, so-called "green" aviation that is a large part of the Aeronautics Directorate's future.

A year ago, pondering a change in the White House, the directorate's hierarchy sought a course that anybody could welcome.

"These are smart people," Shin said. "You cannot fool these people with PowerPoint presentations and fancy graphics.

"I think we have made the right decision to face the most important challenge that the nation will face, which is environmental mitigation."

From that area will come the new concepts and ideas to feed the engine of fundamental aeronautics.

Acting administrator Chris Scolese also drew praise for supporting the idea of the Aeronautics Directorate tackling the environmental problem. "Without his support, the idea would have never left the headquarters building," Shin said.

But even that didn't bring a funding increase. Shin acknowledged the difficulty in the recent past of finding more money for aeronautics.

"We have tried and tried and nothing happened," he said. "The funding kept going down. Despite our honest effort and hard work, we didn't get the credibility and trust from people. … It's not through lack of effort. Somehow the message just wasn't getting across." It has gotten across, he added, "because we have found our roots."

Those roots are in fundamental research. But to make them grow requires looking at it as feeding that growth.

Doing so confounds the critics.

"People start recognizing (good research)," he said. "Then companies come around and say, 'I thought you were going to become irrelevant in two years and go right back to doing sandbox research. We've just been waiting on the sidelines for NASA aeronautics to go down in flames.' "

Now, he added, "they're saying 'now I get it.' "

That recognition brings funding. "If you do things right, money will follow," Shin said. "In my humble opinion, that is what's happening."

And so Shin took time to celebrate Wednesday and invited others to celebrate with him, telling them "you did it" and asking them to do it again.


 
NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Denise Lineberry