🏛️ El Langley Research Center de la NASA, clave en la aviación y exploración espacial, fue donde Neil Armstrong se preparó para llegar a la Luna 🌕Los ingenieros Sam Zauber y Frank Quinto comparten su experiencia.
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00:00Desde su fundación, el Langley Research Center de la NASA, ha sido clave en el desarrollo de la aviación, la exploración espacial y el estudio de la atmósfera terrestre.
00:11Ubicado en Virginia, este centro histórico no solo alberga estructuras icónicas como el Gantry, donde Neil Armstrong entrenó para caminar en la Luna,
00:20sino que también es sede de pruebas avanzadas como los impactos acuáticos del módulo Orion.
00:27En esta nota, los ingenieros Sam Sauber y Frank Quinto comparten su experiencia trabajando en uno de los centros de investigación más emblemáticos de la NASA.
00:57My name is Sam Sauber. I'm a test engineer here at the 14 by 22 foot subsonic wind tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center.
01:11My name is Frank Quinto. I am the facility manager.
01:13I have been working at NASA Langley for over 42 years.
01:20The coolest part of my job is that I get to see things that are going to happen in the future,
01:26like the space shuttle system before we got to launch.
01:30The airplanes that we test will probably be flying in the future, years from now.
01:35And the other cool part is I get to work with wonderful people like Sam here.
01:39Don't do that. Now I'm going to be laughing all the way through every question.
01:47Testing in this tunnel is really important.
01:50Every time you fly commercially, you fly on a plane that was tested at a facility such as ours.
01:56We've checked it for safety. We've checked it for fuel efficiency.
02:00And we've helped improve the features on it that leads the technology into the next generation of aircraft.
02:09As a test engineer for the wind tunnel, I do the technical coordination for a wind tunnel test.
02:15So if a researcher wants to test an airplane in our tunnel,
02:18then I set up the instrumentation and the data system so that we can get them the best possible data.
02:24A wind tunnel works by blowing air over a model that we are interested in learning more about.
02:33The maximum speed in here is about 235 miles an hour.
02:37With that speed, we normally concentrate on what we consider the most important part of flight,
02:42which is the takeoff and landing.
02:44There are a lot of things that we tested that need to take off and land.
02:47Future airliners, the space launch system, helicopters, military airplanes.
02:55So those are some of the things that we have tested in our facility.
02:59So as you can see behind me, we have a very large fan.
03:02The fan is 40 feet in diameter, consisting of nine wooden blades made out of Sitka spruce.
03:10Each fan blade is 16 feet long and weighing about 650 pounds apiece.
03:15The fan is attached to a 12,000 horsepower electric motor.
03:20That fan will push air through a tunnel that's looped on itself.
03:25And on the other side of this tunnel will be an aircraft or whatever our model is.
03:32Some of the strangest things that we have tested in a 14x22 include things like wheelchairs, exhaust stacks,
03:39radar dishes, wind turbines, race cars, NASCARs, Formula One, and Indy racers.
03:49Just like any other engineer, one of the big tasks that always comes up is troubleshooting.
03:55Things don't always go the way that you expect them to go.
03:58Every day there's some other problem that needs to be solved,
04:01whether it's a big problem or it's a small problem.
04:04And it always keeps you on your toes every day.
04:06You make it work, Sam.
04:07I make it work.
04:10We do a lot of visualization in our tunnel, which includes putting smoke through the tunnel.
04:16Sometimes we'll put fluorescent oil over the surface of the model.
04:21And in these different ways, we're able to actually physically see
04:25how the wind is moving across different areas of our model.
04:29And I find that really interesting because I'm a visual learner.
04:32When I was in high school, my favorite STEM subject actually was chemistry.
04:38Thank you, Mrs. Maurer.
04:39She did a lot of labs that were hands-on.
04:43I think oftentimes people don't think of how important just tinkering with electronics
04:49or with technology really can be beneficial.
04:53Oh, yeah.
04:53I did a lot of tinkering as a kid.
04:56I built a lot of model airplanes,
04:58which was nice because then I got to figure out what the different parts of the airplanes were
05:04and how they go together.
05:06A lot of people think that just because they are more artistic or more creative
05:14that they're not cut out for a STEM field.
05:17But in all honesty, engineers, scientists have to be creative
05:22and have to be somewhat artistic to be able to come up with these new ideas
05:26and see how they can solve the problems in the world around them.
05:32You don't have to be the biggest genius in math to be able to be an engineer.
05:37If you understand the concepts and if you understand how they apply to the world,
05:41then that's how you become a successful engineer.
05:44Almost everything in the world today is part of science, technology, engineering, or math.
05:51Just keep at it.
05:53If it's not interesting to you, give a different perspective for someone else.