Conference 7.286::space

434.0. "NASM's 'Beyond the Limits'" by MTWAIN::KLAES (Know Future) Tue Jun 28 1988 11:01

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Subject: Coming to the National Air & Space Museum
Posted: 1 Jun 88 15:25:59 GMT
Organization: AT&T CSEd/CET, Piscataway, N.J.
 
    Students Give Museum Visitors A Chance To Launch Rockets
 
    Washington, DC. May 3, 1988. Millions of visitors to the
Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum soon will be able to test
their own abilities to design and launch rockets into space.  They'll
do it with the help of a computer program created by three college students. 
 
    The program is the winning entry in the "Race for Space Software
Chase," a nationwide software writing contest sponsored by the
Smithsonian and Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. 
 
    Undergraduate and graduate students at leading universities across
the country were challenged to write computer programs that would let
museum visitors actually experience some of the ways computers are
used in aviation and space flight.  The best entry was promised a
place in a new air and space museum gallery that will showcase the
vital role that computers play in aerospace technology.  The gallery,
called "Beyond the Limits" will open in May 1989. 
 
    Three students from the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, Calif., captured the grand prize with a program on rocket
design.  The winning software was designed by Pierce T. Wetter III, a
junior electrical engineering major from Simi Valley, Calif.; Mike
Meckler, a sophomore physics major from Columbus, Ohio; and Glenn C.
Smith, a junior physics major from South Pasadena, Calif. 
 
    The software will allow museum visitors to see how changing
variables such as thrust, weight and fuel type affect a rocket's
ability to overcome gravity and leave the earth's atmosphere.   Once a
visitor arrives at a workable design, the program "launches" the
rocket, calculates the maximum altitude it will reach and compares
these results with attempts by other visitors. 
 
    "The museum as a teaching institution hopes to stimulate thought
-- on both a scientific and a popular level -- about the challenges
and excitement of aerospace technology," said Martin O. Harwit,
director of the National Air and Space Museum.  "We are happy to
exhibit the work of the grand prize winning students in our new
computer gallery and to expand our role of educating the public." 
 
    "Creating highly interactive, graphically sophisticated software
is no small accomplishment--one that would have been unheard of for
students just a few years ago.  Today's computing tools give students
both the means and the motivation to solve real-world problems," Dave
Barram, Apple's vice president of corporate affairs, said today in
announcing the winners at a news conference at the museum. 
 
    The grand prize includes a summer internship at the museum for one
member of the Cal Tech team and 10 Macintosh II computers, donated by
Apple to the university. 
 
    In addition to Cal Tech, four other schools earned honors in the
contest: the University of California at Davis for a program that
simulates effects of a wind tunnel; Northwestern University in
Evanston, Illinois for software that demonstrates how air crews use
computers during reconnaissance flights. Stanford University in Palo
Alto, Calif. and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana,
which each submitted programs that simulate the results of aircraft
design decisions.  Each university was awarded two Macintosh II computers. 
 
    All entries were required to be two-minute, interactive
demonstrations that show how computers are used in aerospace
engineering.  The entries were judged in four categories; content,
creativity, ease of use, and use of computer science methodology. 
 
    The competition was judged by distinguished names in the aerospace
and computer industries:  Burt Rutan, designer of the aircraft
Voyager, which in 1986 flew around the world non-stop without
refueling; Paul MacCready, creator of the Gossamer Condor and other
human- and solar-powered aircraft; Alan Kay, scientist and Apple
Fellow whose ideas and innovation in programming languages were
critical to the development of personal computers, including Apple's
Macintosh; Robert E. Holzman, manager of computer graphics lab at Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which is well-known for its
computer animation of the flights of Voyager II and other unmanned
flights into deep space; and Paul Ceruzzi, associate curator in the
Space Science and Exploration Department. 
 
    About nine million people visit the museum each year to view 23
exhibition galleries displaying some of the most significant aircraft
and spacecraft ever assembled in one place.  The museum's new gallery
will demonstrate the role computers play in aerospace
technology--including design, testing, manufacturing and production,
simulation and training, navigation and ground control, on-board
control and air and space operations. 
 
    Apple, the Apple logo and Macintosh are regisitered trademarks of
Apple Computer, Inc. 
 
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   __________________________________________________________________________
    Ken Eddings                 CSNET: [email protected]
    Department of Philosophy  ARPANET: eddings%andy.bgsu.edu@csnet-relay
    Bowling Green State Univ.   ALink: UG0182 attn: Ken Eddings
    Bowling Green OH 43403      GEnie: K.EDDINGS
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