Overview of NASA Aeronautics Programs

Jaiwon Shin

Deputy Associate Administrator

Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate

NASA Headquarters

Washington, DC

Aeronautics is critical to national military and economic security, transportation mobility and freedom, and quality of life. Air superiority and the ability to globally deploy our forces are vital to the national interest. Aviation is a unique, indispensable part of our Nation’s transportation system, providing unequaled speed and distance, mobility and freedom of movement for our Nation. Air carriers enplane over 600 million passengers and fly over 600 billion passenger miles, accounting for 63 percent of individual one-way trips over 500 miles and 80 percent of trips over 1000 miles. Airfreight carries 29 percent of the value of the Nation’s exports and imports and is growing at over six percent annually. Global communications, commerce and tourism have driven international growth in aviation to five to six percent annually, well beyond annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.  In many ways, the U.S. has only begun to tap what is possible in air transportation. The US has over 5,200 public-use airports, but the vast majority of passengers pass through a little more than one percent of those airports and only about 10 percent are used to any significant degree.

Technological advances over the past 40 years, many of them first pioneered by NASA, have enabled a ten-fold improvement in aviation safety, a doubling of fuel efficiency with reductions in emissions per operation, a 50 percent reduction in cost to travelers, and an order of magnitude reduction in noise generation. In large part, the gains we have enjoyed have been due to the efficient transfer of the benefits of technology to consumers via competitive air transportation markets.

At NASA our aeronautics program is pioneering and validating high-value technologies that enable discovery and improve the quality of life through practical applications. We are investing our available resources in the revolutionary technologies that will ensure the success of our mission.  To ensure maximum benefit to the taxpayer, and to embrace the President’s vision, we are transforming our investment in Aeronautics Research in order to more sharply focus our investment on revolutionary, high-risk, “barrier breaking” technologies.  Toward this end, the NASA Aeronautics Vehicle Systems Program (VSP) has been refocused away from evolutionary research and technology development of several projects toward four specific revolutionary technology demonstration projects.  These projects will address critical public needs related to reduction of aircraft noise and emissions, and enable new science missions. The paper will provide an overview of the four NASA aeronautics programs: Aviation Safety and Security Program, Airspace Systems Program, Vehicle Systems Program, and Foundational Technology Program.