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>>Flashing across California desert skies, the airplanes you see

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here are writing new chapters in the story
of man made flight....there she goes!

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>>This is my first opportunity
to greet you as deputy administrator

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of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.

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>>Together, you and I must make our new agency

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>>A most unusual place

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>>An organization that can challenge
conventional wisdom.

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>>We can engineer anything we can write the requirements for.

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>>We're going to make your idea work.

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This particular idea is quite disruptive.

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>>A typical flight, of course, starts
under the wing of the B-52 mothership.

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>>This sleek, high speed machine
would have made Rube Goldberg proud.

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>>The manner in which we fly
reentry from space,

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on the space shuttle was
pioneered on the X-15.

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>>The X-31 pretty much wrote the book on thurst vectoring, along with its sister program, the F-18 HARV.

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>>An observation of an occulation is

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one of the more challenging
missions that SOFIA can do.

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[Music/Background sound]

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>>Right now, we are looking
at the dawn of a new era of aviation.

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[Music/Background sound]

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[Music]

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>>The sun would first stir life on our planet...

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Gradual shiftings and upheavals would bury

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creatures and plants
beneath the surface of the earth.

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There, they would fossilize, eventually
turning into huge reservoirs of gas

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and coal...

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>>Oil made possible
one of the greatest inventions of history-

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the internal combustion engine,
which gave us mastery over the air.

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>>Pollution, grew around us
until one day, at last,

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we noticed that something had gone wrong
with our once pretty world...

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Just in time, the satellite
now gives us a view of pollution

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impossible to get in any other way.

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[Music]

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>>Scientists

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and researchers
continue to develop various technologies

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to cut fuel consumption,
through aircraft structure

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and engine design.

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>>Lightweight wires and electronics replace
mechanical linkage.

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>>NASA researchers see vertical takeoff
aircraft as commercially useful.

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These types of aircraft use less room
for takeoff and landing

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and keep noise and air pollution lower
than our present commercial planes.

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[Music/Background Sound]

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>>One of
the most unusual and highly experimental

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aircraft ever tested at
Dryden was the Gossamer Albatross.

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The albatross was Human-Powered

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and pedaled like a bicycle.

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The man who designed

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the Albatross also built the Gossamer
Penguin, the world's first flight

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worthy sun-powered plane

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[Music/Background Sound]

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>>ERAST is NASA's

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environmental research
aircraft and sensor technology program,

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and its mission is to develop aircraft
that are capable of

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flying very high and very slowly,
primarily to do

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atmospheric sampling
and monitoring of the global environment.

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>>Solar power offers some unique capability
for flying in the stratosphere.

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>>HELIOS should be able to stay aloft
for up to six months at a time

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to function
very much as an atmospheric satellite.

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>>What's very unique to the solar-powered
airplanes is that they are not polluting

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the very atmosphere
that they're trying to take samples from.

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So they're ideally suited
for that purpose.

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>>These vehicles can help us attain
a desirable balance between technology

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and nature.

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The stakes are high as we speed toward
a challenging future.

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>>Solar powered aircraft don't really work
well at nighttime.

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This is a way of compensating
for the inability to get energy at night.

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The airplane flies off the energy
provided by the laser.

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>>This is the world's first demonstration
of the application of laser

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energy to a flight vehicle
to achieve truly fuel-less flight.

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>>NASA Aeronautics
continued its green aviation initiatives.

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Their goal? To make air travel quieter

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cleaner, and more efficient while
increasing the safety and comfort of passengers.

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>>With this mandate
to significantly lower noise and emissions

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and increase performance
for subsonic aircraft,

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there will be a need to address

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virtually every aspect
of the current aircraft configuration.

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>>We're using a blended alternative fuel

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to evaluate the impact of different fuels
on the emissions of the aircraft.

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>>People have done lifecycle studies
to look at the carbon balance,

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which takes into account

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the amount of energy that you use
in growing the plant, processing the oil...

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Some of the studies have shown
about a 75% reduction in the amount of CO2

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that you get using camelina compared
to conventional petroleum based fuel.

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>>NASA started investigating
alternative fuels

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as a way of reducing the carbon emissions
from aircraft.

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But there's other benefits of these fuels.

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They produce much lower levels of soot,
and also they do not have

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sulfur contaminants.

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Hopefully there will be a fairly
significant return on investment in terms of

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improved public health and environment.

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>>Everything within

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subsonic aviation
now is looking for efficiency.

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We're looking at structures
to make aircraft lighter.

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We're looking at various
propulsion systems

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in order to make them more fuel efficient.

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And we're looking at configurations
to lower the noise impact of community

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noise, essentially looking at
an environmentally responsible aircraft.

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>>We really think this airplane
is revolutionary.

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It's a big jump in technology
from the tube and wing kind of airplanes

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that you see today.

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It's much more efficient

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I like to say it's like a hybrid car
compared to a regular car.

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>>It's exciting to think that we're
contributing to the green aircraft

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of the future.

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>>The aircraft now can be programmed to have,
for example, engines that are more fuel

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efficient...control the engines separately
and also more closely and carefully.

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[Music/Background Sound]

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>>This is NASA's first
all electric crewed aircraft.

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>>We can use electric propulsion systems
and aircraft design in an interactive way.

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The wing itself is designed

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so that the electric motors enable extra
efficiency in the wing itself.

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>>There's several

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different types of airplanes
that can benefit from electric propulsion.

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The one that's gaining a lot of interest
right now is the smaller version,

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air taxi type vehicle.

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>>In doing the work of developing
these systems,

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integrating these systems and so forth,

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we have helped industry along their path.

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We've been able to deliver lessons learned on
batteries, on how you do the power electronics,

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how you build up the motors...

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And so X-57 really has been a pathfinder,
early on, for electric propulsion.

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>>The next generation of vehicles,

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they're going to be much greener
and much more efficient types of