Plenty of Room in the Air

This article highlights a research on a spectrum of revolutionary concepts and technologies, for civilian and military air vehicles and the airspace system that will enable a bold new era of aviation and mobility. The long-range vision includes major changes in personal transportation and significant increases in air travel capacity and safety. The vision is included in the NASA Aeronautics Blueprint, published earlier this year. It includes advanced concepts for the airspace system as a complex, highly integrated system of systems. It also outlines a new model for aviation safety and security, revolutionary aerospace vehicles with significantly greater performance, and assured development of a competent aerospace workforce. NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are investigating the feasibility of creating personal air vehicles that could replace or, at the very least, augment personal ground and air transportation schemes. The integration of intelligence and multifunctionality into the varied airframe and propulsion components of aerospace vehicles requires the development of revolutionary materials, structures, and subsystems. They can be achieved through the fusion of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology into a new discipline—nanobiologics—that is the foundation for biologically inspired materials and structures.