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~NewsRelease National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Langley Research Center Hampton, Virginia 23681-2199

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RELEASE NO. 09-002 Jan. 6,2009

NASA LANGLEY FORECAST

STUDENTS TO HELP DESIGN NASA LUNAR EXPLORATION PROJECTS. A contest sponsored by NASA's Langley Research Center and the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) is challenging university students to think about what astronauts will face when we return to the moon, then design projects that may become part of actual lunar exploration. The 2009 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage or RASC-AL competition is aimed at undergraduate and graduate engineering students. Deadline for submission of proposals is Feb. 6. For more information: Kathy Barnstorff at 757-864-9886 or Kathy.barnstorff@nasa.gov

NASA LANGLEY EXPERIMENTS WITH ALTERNATIVE AVIATION FUELS. Rising oil costs and the need to reduce pollution has created interest in developing alternative aviation fuels. Although a variety of fuels has been produced that meet the United Nations'

'-......../ International Civil Aviation Organization speCifications for gas turbine engines, studies are needed to determine the impacts on engine operation and exhaust composition. This January, NASA will burn fuels from a variety of sources in the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's DC-8 to study changes in the aircraft's engine performance and compare emissions with standard commercial jet fuel. The Alternative Aviation Fuel Experiment, or AAFEX, will be conducted at NASNs Palmdale, Calif., aircraft facility. NASA Langley Research Center's Bruce Anderson is the project scientist for the study that will include researchers from the Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency. For more information, contact Chris Rink at 757-864-6786 or christopher.p.rink@nasa.gov

ALTERNATE ASTRONAUT ESCAPE SYSTEM TO BE TESTED. The NASA Constellation Program is developing an astronaut escape system for its Orion spacecraft, designed to carry humans to the International Space Station by 2015 and to the lunar surface by 2020. In a parallel effort, another NASA team is preparing to demonstrate an alternate escape system design to explore different technological approaches to the same task. Named after Maxime (Max) Faget, a Mercury-era pioneer, the Max Launch Abort System (MLAS) concept will be validated by conducting an unmanned pad-abort test in March at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. Like the leading NASA launch abort concept, MLAS offers a safe, reliable method of pulling the spacecraft capsule and crew out of danger in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during the climb to Earth orbit. For more information, contact Keith Henry at 757-864-6120 or h.k.henry@nasa.gov.

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:,...-/ TV SHOW CELEBRATES HOW NASA CHANGES PEOPLE'S LIVES. "NASA 360," a half-hour television program produced by NASA's Langley Research Center in cooperation with the National Institute of Aerospace, is marking its first year on the air and online. "NASA 360" shows how technologies developed by or for NASA are being used in everything from space exploration to everyday consumer products. The program appears on TV outlets around the world and is a popular vodcast available on nasa.gov. See the most recent program at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/nasa360/index.html. For more information: Kathy Barnstorff at 757-864-9886 or Kathy.barnstorff@nasa.gov

AIRLINE PILOTS HELP RESEARCHERS ASSESS FUTURE AIRSPACE OPERATIONS. Engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center are looking at how current airplanes fit into the next generation environment of air traffic management, which is expected to be more automated and autonomous. Airline pilots are helping researchers better understand what technologies may be needed to make current systems work more successfully. For more information: Kathy Barnstorff at 757-864-9886 or Kathy.barnstorff@nasa.gov .

NASA LANGLEY HOSTS INTERNATIONAL SPACE PARTY Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space on April 12, 1961. Twenty years later that same day, the United States launched the first space shuttle. NASA Langley is celebrating these two milestones in history by joining in the worldwide space party called Yuri's Night. Hundreds of parties will take place on April 4 all over the world in celebration of space exploration. Langley is hosting its own party that Saturday night at the Virginia Air & Space Center

"----" in downtown Hampton from 7 to 12 p.m. Festivities will include live music, space-themed door prizes, a costume contest, street performers, high-tech interactive exhibits, and artists and their art from all over the East Coast. Contact Emily Outen at 757-864-7022 or emily.s.outen@nasa.gov.

SPEAKER SERIES Media are invited to attend talks at afternoon presentations to employees at NASA Langley. Speakers will be available for interviews before each talk. The general public is invited to similar evening presentations at 7:30 at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton. For more information, contact Emily Outen at 757-864-7022 or at emily.s.outen@nasa.gov.

Jan. 13 - 2:00 p.m -- Energy for the Greenhouse World, Dr. Aristides A.N. Patrinos, president, Synthetic Genomics, Inc.

Jan. 13 -- 7:30 p.m -- From Reading to Writing the Genetic Code, Dr. Craig Venter, president, J. Craig Venter Institute

Feb. 10 -- Dark Matter, Dr. Salman Habib, Los Alamos National Laboratory March 3 -- Soft Smart Materials: From Electroactive Polymers to Biomolecular Systems, Dr. Don

Leo,

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