Post by Bornthrilla on Jul 13, 2005 15:43:14 GMT -5
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Aggies linked to NASA mission
By Chris Coletta
Staff Writer
GREENSBORO -- Aggie pride, N.C. A&T boosters like to tell anyone who will listen, is just about everywhere.
It's in ordinary homes. It's in the former Woolworth store on Elm Street that saw the beginning of the civil rights movement.
And ever since Ronald McNair took his A&T physics degree and parlayed it into a stint on the space shuttle, it's been part of humankind's final frontier.
"NASA is very important to A&T, and I think A&T is very important to NASA," said Bill Craft, an engineering professor with ties to the space program.
That relationship will be on display today with the launch of the space shuttle Discovery, provided the weather holds up. It's the first shuttle mission since Columbia disintegrated over Texas in February 2003.
It's also a key moment for A&T, which since the late 1990s has received $44.3 million from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for education, research and economic development.
With that money, university researchers have worked on creating stronger materials for space travel. They've worked with semiconductors, created ultra-efficient engines and helped improve long-range, digital communications.
They've also made strides toward a new space sciences program for undergraduates and partnered with the National Institute of Aerospace -- an educational academy and research center in Hampton, Va., that itself is aligned with NASA's Langley Research Center.
The message is clear: A&T has its eyes squarely on the future -- the future of space travel, the future of the campus, the future of Aggies alumni.
"There is a little bit of a disconnect with the research that most universities do and the flying machine that is going to be relaunched," said Craft, A&T's liaison to the aerospace institute. "We tend to work into the future, and since we also educate students, that's the next generation of engineers and scientists."
That's not to say some hard work hasn't already paid off. To help combat a Columbia-type disaster, NASA now has at its fingertips technology invented by A&T engineering professor Mannur Sundaresan that can monitor large structures, such as space vehicles, in real time.
"At least theoretically, that type of system could have alerted the pilots of the (damage to the) last space shuttle prior to the unfortunate accident," said Doug Speight, director of A&T's technology transfer office.
In the long run, though, the shuttle won't be around. NASA plans to phase it out by the end of the decade and replace it with a new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle. It's part of President Bush's plan to put Americans back on the moon by 2020 -- and to use those missions as a stepping stone to explorations of Mars and beyond.
Technology being developed at A&T right now could play a key role in those missions, Craft said.
So could A&T alumni, using McNair as their role model. The 1971 alumnus died in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger almost two decades ago, but not before becoming an astronaut in 1979 and going into space on the 10th shuttle mission in 1984.
Multiple programs train and nurture future astronauts at A&T. For starters, an agreement with the federal government makes A&T the only university in North Carolina that can license NASA's gadgetry in the private sector -- helping companies that could hire bright minds from Triad schools.
Only two such patents have come through A&T thus far, one to a company in Foxboro, Mass., and the other to Greensboro-based Williams Electrical Systems. But Speight remains hopeful about things to come.
"The thrust there is to connect NASA's technologies with companies throughout our state," he said.
"The students have been involved ... on the academic end, and they can bring that experience to these companies."
A&T physics professor Abebe Kebede has the same idea.
He's got a three-year NASA grant for $800,000 to develop a curriculum in space sciences, with the end goal of getting A&T students jobs in the field.
Already, one of Kebede's students is studying to earn her doctorate in astrophysics at the University of Maryland, and a few undergraduates are likely to follow in her footsteps.
It's just one more nook, one more cranny, for the spread of Aggie pride.
"N.C. A&T, in the long run, will benefit in terms of getting bright students coming to the state, to our own college," Kebede said. "Which means we can use it to shape the future of the state."
Contact Chris Coletta at 373-4441 or ccoletta@news-record.com
Aggies linked to NASA mission
By Chris Coletta
Staff Writer
GREENSBORO -- Aggie pride, N.C. A&T boosters like to tell anyone who will listen, is just about everywhere.
It's in ordinary homes. It's in the former Woolworth store on Elm Street that saw the beginning of the civil rights movement.
And ever since Ronald McNair took his A&T physics degree and parlayed it into a stint on the space shuttle, it's been part of humankind's final frontier.
"NASA is very important to A&T, and I think A&T is very important to NASA," said Bill Craft, an engineering professor with ties to the space program.
That relationship will be on display today with the launch of the space shuttle Discovery, provided the weather holds up. It's the first shuttle mission since Columbia disintegrated over Texas in February 2003.
It's also a key moment for A&T, which since the late 1990s has received $44.3 million from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for education, research and economic development.
With that money, university researchers have worked on creating stronger materials for space travel. They've worked with semiconductors, created ultra-efficient engines and helped improve long-range, digital communications.
They've also made strides toward a new space sciences program for undergraduates and partnered with the National Institute of Aerospace -- an educational academy and research center in Hampton, Va., that itself is aligned with NASA's Langley Research Center.
The message is clear: A&T has its eyes squarely on the future -- the future of space travel, the future of the campus, the future of Aggies alumni.
"There is a little bit of a disconnect with the research that most universities do and the flying machine that is going to be relaunched," said Craft, A&T's liaison to the aerospace institute. "We tend to work into the future, and since we also educate students, that's the next generation of engineers and scientists."
That's not to say some hard work hasn't already paid off. To help combat a Columbia-type disaster, NASA now has at its fingertips technology invented by A&T engineering professor Mannur Sundaresan that can monitor large structures, such as space vehicles, in real time.
"At least theoretically, that type of system could have alerted the pilots of the (damage to the) last space shuttle prior to the unfortunate accident," said Doug Speight, director of A&T's technology transfer office.
In the long run, though, the shuttle won't be around. NASA plans to phase it out by the end of the decade and replace it with a new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle. It's part of President Bush's plan to put Americans back on the moon by 2020 -- and to use those missions as a stepping stone to explorations of Mars and beyond.
Technology being developed at A&T right now could play a key role in those missions, Craft said.
So could A&T alumni, using McNair as their role model. The 1971 alumnus died in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger almost two decades ago, but not before becoming an astronaut in 1979 and going into space on the 10th shuttle mission in 1984.
Multiple programs train and nurture future astronauts at A&T. For starters, an agreement with the federal government makes A&T the only university in North Carolina that can license NASA's gadgetry in the private sector -- helping companies that could hire bright minds from Triad schools.
Only two such patents have come through A&T thus far, one to a company in Foxboro, Mass., and the other to Greensboro-based Williams Electrical Systems. But Speight remains hopeful about things to come.
"The thrust there is to connect NASA's technologies with companies throughout our state," he said.
"The students have been involved ... on the academic end, and they can bring that experience to these companies."
A&T physics professor Abebe Kebede has the same idea.
He's got a three-year NASA grant for $800,000 to develop a curriculum in space sciences, with the end goal of getting A&T students jobs in the field.
Already, one of Kebede's students is studying to earn her doctorate in astrophysics at the University of Maryland, and a few undergraduates are likely to follow in her footsteps.
It's just one more nook, one more cranny, for the spread of Aggie pride.
"N.C. A&T, in the long run, will benefit in terms of getting bright students coming to the state, to our own college," Kebede said. "Which means we can use it to shape the future of the state."
Contact Chris Coletta at 373-4441 or ccoletta@news-record.com
