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At the start of every launch

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vehicle program, one of the

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most important things is

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aerodynamics, because you need

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to understand if you can control

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the vehicle, if it's going to

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do what you want it to do, and

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you need to know how much payload

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you're going to get to orbit.

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Those are requirements we work

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on early on and this type of

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testing is the key to

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understanding those things.

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In this particular type test,

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what we do is... we'll be

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passing air at various speeds

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or Mach numbers over the model

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and we'll be measuring the

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forces, all six degrees, so

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we'll be measuring forces

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through axes and also moments:

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the yawing, pitching, throwing

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moments for the vehicle and

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we'll be putting that into a

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database that will be used for

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guidance, navigation and control.

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This tunnel has an advantage of

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being small. Small means its

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cheap to build the models, its

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cheap to operate electrically,

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to pass the mass flow air

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through here, the energy

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consumption is low. This tunnel

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has the advantage of being

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inexpensive. In the case of this

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particular test, we've done over

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400 runs with each configuration

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and each configuration takes ten

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data points. We have lots of data

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that we pull out of each set of

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wind tunnel runs.

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Ultimately, wind tunnel testing

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is not that expensive when you

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look at the large quantity of data

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that we get out of each set of

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tests. One of the reasons we still

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use wind tunnels is that they are

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less expensive than some other

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techniques. We try to use the right

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tool with the right amount of

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resources to solve our problems.

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We've been a lot more lean in SLS

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than we were on Ares or Shuttle

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or Saturn.

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Saturn didn't have the tools that

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we have today and they didn't have

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the history that we have today. We

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leveraged a lot off of flight

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reports from Saturn and understanding

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the interaction with the atmosphere

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for the rockets included in the Apollo

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time. A lot of our benefit is through

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intelligently looking at all the

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history we've been able accumulate

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and doing things just a little more

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efficiently.

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It's exciting. I don't know anybody

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on our team that is not excited,

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that doesn't want to go do space