Emerging Technologies May Fuel Revolutionary Launcher

As NASA studies possibilities for the next launcher to the stars, a team of engineers from Kennedy Space Center and several other field centers are looking for a system that turns a host of existing cutting-edge technologies into the next giant leap spaceward.


An early proposal has emerged that calls for a wedge-shaped aircraft with scramjets to be launched horizontally on an electrified track or gas-powered sled. The aircraft would fly up to Mach 10, using the scramjets and wings to lift it to the upper reaches of the atmosphere where a small payload canister or capsule similar to a rocket's second stage would fire off the back of the aircraft and into orbit. The aircraft would come back and land on a runway by the launch site.

Engineers also contend the system, with its advanced technologies, will benefit the nation's high-tech industry by perfecting technologies that would make more efficient commuter rail systems, better batteries for cars and trucks, and numerous other spinoffs.

It might read as the latest in a series of science fiction articles, but NASA's Stan Starr, branch chief of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Kennedy, points out that nothing in the design calls for brand-new technology to be developed. However, the system counts on a number of existing technologies to be pushed forward.

'Mindshift' Biofeedback Gaming Technology

Nasa - The gamer's quest is for reality, but there are limits when an animated, armored man is shooting at a banshee flying at him at simulated warp speed on a video screen; or a caricature of an athlete is trying to hit a light that represents a ball that can curve in ways that defy physics.

And logic.

This is the world in which NASA's Langley Research Center scientists Alan Pope and Chad Stephens worked with Langley Volunteer Service Program high school intern Nina Blanson until she decamped to become a freshman at Yale.

They have invented technology to inject stress levels into the games' controls so that the nervous or stressed shooter is aiming a moving gun at a moving target. The technology has a long, somewhat descriptive, acronym-defying name, but the inventors are just calling it "Mindshift" and are inviting representatives of the gaming industry to a demonstration on September 22 in Raleigh, N.C.

It includes a sensor attached to the player's earlobe, checking the pulse and wired into the control. Or sensors attached to the forehead, seeking the facial muscle strain that is a sign of stress.

Or even sensors attached to the player's partner to inject a social variable into game play, requiring teamwork between the two players. At issue is understanding that video games are with us, so why not involve them in the monitoring and treatment of stress?

"You don't have to do everything in a disciplined way," said Pope, whose field of expertise is engineering psychophysiology and biomedical feedback. "You can also do it recreationally.

"There are some people who claim that playing video games contributes to attention deficit, that it rewires our brains. Well, if that's the case then let's decide how we want video games rewiring our brain."