glare
again
and body babe
ma'am
welcome to this edition of NASA images
I'm Lynn Bondurant during this show were
focusing on historic NASA documentary
footage showing NASA technology
spin-offs to medical and energy fields
as well as others let's start off by
going to a NASA report from 1979 about
electric car tests this car running on a
dynamometer at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena is powered by a
small electric motor and 20 batteries it
was designed and is owned by Wally repel
a senior engineer working on JPL's
electric vehicle project if large
numbers of electric automobiles are
needed in the future because of
continuing oil shortages engineers here
and at other NASA facilities hope to be
ready with the research answers that
will make it possible
I think the electric car probably will
run in terms of energy just pure energy
about the same as a gasoline engine car
however we're talking about energy
displacement the prime factor in favor
of electric car is that it can use any
kind of energy to produce the
electricity oil coal nuclear even solar
power for example can be used to produce
the electricity which can then be stored
in the car and use for power the
assessment of current electric vehicles
is being conducted by NASA for the US
Department of Energy the research is
expected to provide the focus and
direction needed for future efforts at a
mile long and infrequently used runway
on the edge of the Mojave Desert
engineers prepare one of the electric
cars for coast down tests
if he can tell baby 13 people ah you
make a life all right stand by o clock
three two and
object of the coast down test is to
determine the electric vehicles
aerodynamic resistance the test is
performed by towing the electric powered
car up to about 60 miles an hour at that
speed it's released the tow vehicle is
driven out of the way and the electric
car coasts to a stop both the velocity
and distance are measured using a fifth
wheel and recording device this tells
researchers the aerodynamic resistance
and the rolling resistance of the car
both important factors in energy
consumption another part of the program
in the mojave is the driving cycle test
the car is driven fast and slow as if it
were being driven in traffic the cars
energy flow is measured under this set
of driving conditions as well as the
range that the car can achieve with
fully charged batteries again project
manager Tom barber the frequency of
recharge depends very heavily on how the
car is used just as for example the
gasoline my logic of your car varies
depending on how you use it if you use
the car around town you'll get probably
45 miles or so on a full charge it takes
approximately 8 to 12 hours to replace
that full charge on the open highway for
example at 55 miles an hour you might
get as much as 75 miles and the recharge
time is still the same because you have
to replenish the battery
electric car research an effort to find
reasonable alternatives to
gasoline-powered automobiles that may
also be quieter and less polluting not
only was NASA involved with electric
cars during the energy crisis but also
wind power later during the next report
please notice that the blades of the
large wind turbine machines are like
wings in some ways residents of this
rhode island community can use steady
ocean breezes to help air-conditioned
their homes in the summer or to heat
them during the cold New England winters
they'll do it with a two hundred
thousand watt wind turbine generator the
place is block island about 35 miles
south of Providence this is the third
experimental two hundred thousand watt
wind machine in a five-year wind energy
program a joint project of the
Department of Energy and NASA this New
England island like all windmill sites
was chosen because of its consistently
high winds the generator will electrify
up to 250 homes during the winter that's
half the permanent residences on the
island until the windmill block I'll
amused all diesel generators for
electricity but now wind energy and
diesel fuel will work together to power
the island block Islands winds should
make it possible for the generator to
operate at an average year round output
of one hundred thousand watts an hour
now when we come to savings it's
directly proportional to the fuel if
this
machine generates approximately a
hundred average which it will with 17
mile an hour wind that would come to a
considerable amount of fuel forty fifty
thousand gallons during the course of a
year and simply multiply that by the
president price and you can see that
it's it's substantial block island is
not the only community boasting a new
wind generator another windmill now
towers majestically 1,000 feet above the
mountain town of boone north carolina
and the folks from boone have lots to
brag about because their windmill is the
largest in the world the blades alone
way 18 tons they spread 200 feet from
tip to tip about the wingspan of a
Boeing 747 the machine produces two
million watts of electricity or ten
times as much as the other generators
before the dedication engineers tested
the windmill from the control van yes
here we go monitor enabled the
electricity that's produced is cabled
Underground through the legs of the
generator and then ties in here before
it's sent down the mountain for
distribution
dedication day was a big eventing book
it was declared a town holiday and
everyone turned out to celebrate
mountain style
Oh
interest in wind energy is growing and
now that the cost of fossil fuel has
increased and supplies at dwindles
engineers are once again turning to the
wind as a potential source of renewable
energy
by sep tember 1982 two more experimental
wind powered generators were being
tested as this 1982 report shows this is
Medicine Bow Wyoming site of the
dedication of to wind powered generators
on sep tember forth the project is a
joint endeavor of NASA's Lewis research
center the Department of Energy and the
Bureau of Reclamation one unit was built
by the hamilton standard company and is
nearly 400 feet high it's capable of
producing for megawatts of electricity
the second unit constructed by the
Boeing engineering and construction
company is powered by a rotor 300 feet
in diameter and can produce two point
five megawatts of electricity when
operating together the pair of wind
turbines will provide enough energy to
meet the needs of three thousand homes
in the rocky mountain area three other
300-foot wind turbines were erected and
successfully tested in the state of
Washington a third-generation wind
turbine was installed and tested in
Hawaii in 1987 following successful
completion of the NASA wind turbine
development program the machine was sold
to Hawaiian Electric renewable systems
corporation in early 1988 according to
dr. David spira of NASA Hawaiian
Electric is to operate the 3.2 mega watt
machine to make commercial power and the
company is to give NASA and the
Department of Energy five years of
operation reports now let's move from
wind power to a 1979 report call
satellite freeze warning
most of us take it for granted that
they'll be fresh fruit in the stores all
winter long but citrus growers often
have trouble getting oranges and
grapefruits to our supermarkets during
the cold season
in the past few years fruit growers have
spent millions of dollars trying to save
their crops from winter freezes
these oil heaters are used for freeze
protection
crews can set them up early in the
evening and flames will warn the orange
or grapefruit roads until morning many
nights during the winter Florida growers
are faced with the decision whether to
call out standby freeze protection crews
at a cost of about thirty six thousand
dollars per hour or to risk having crops
ruined by an unexpected freeze but now
NASA the University of Florida and NOAA
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration are developing a system
to warn growers about freezing
temperatures using a computerized and
more accurate means of forecasting the
freeze line information from the goes
one weather satellite is received at the
ruskin national weather service station
just east of Tampa Bay and relayed
around the state alerting growers when
and where to protect their groves
we collect up to three hours of data
from the key stations and at 8pm we
enter that data into the computer at
that time we will have our 8pm satellite
seen in the computer it takes a few
minutes types of data end and from that
point on it's very fast the computer
takes over and produces the mountaineers
so by about eight thirty in the evening
we can have our predicted maps for the
rest of these okay Jim here's the key
station data for this hour okay soil
temperatures 55.3 52.7
51.3 air temperatures
55.2
56.3
57.8
dew point is 35 this is the 0 to Z
picture yes looks like we've got mid 40s
in Central Florida perhaps some
near-freezing temperatures at North
Central let's blow this area about north
central okay
yes that's the area
yeah it looks like there are there are
some temperatures right at 32 up in
north central florida that correlates so
closely with the reports have received
from growers florida has certain cloud
patterns that make it conducive to
satellite weather predictions a normal
severe freeze for florida produces a
very dry air mass over the state which
eliminates any cloud cover and this is
one thing that makes the system work
well in florida when we have very very
cold temperatures we do not have clouds
of spearing the satellite data it gives
us a very clear picture of the state
using the satellite seen oil heaters
computers and satellites working
together to help citrus growers bring an
abundance of winter fruit to our
supermarkets next let's see to 1981
reports which show how nasa's study of
aerodynamics has spun off two trucks
freeways and motorhomes nasa's role in
studying things aerodynamic has ranged
from several decades before the second
world war two the reusable space shuttle
now being ready for its first flight
using similar aerodynamic scaling
techniques nASA has been assisting in a
federal highway administration sponsored
project that may one day help engineers
improve the design of tunnels and
highways this facility is a hundred and
ten feet long the reason for that length
is for the level section to be
equivalent to about a half a mile long
so one could have about five sections of
three tunnels and two no tunnels about
500 feet long and that gave us enough
tunnels in a row such that we can
observe the recirculation of the air
from tunnel to tunnel as it gets dragged
from one tunnel the next by the movement
of the cars or actually backs up to go
to an adjacent tunnel we have two lanes
of traffic such that we can have the
traffic either going in the same
direction or in opposing directions just
like what happened in a real highway
frequently freeways and tunnels use up
large areas of land that might better be
used in other ways the researchers are
experimentally depressing and partially
covering simulated freeways in an urban
area to find out how much and how little
tunnel is needed one of the tests
involves injecting trace gases that act
like pot automobile exhausts coupled
with carefully controlled wind and
temperature measurements air flow
patterns can be determined that may help
designers build more efficient highways
and tunnels in the future
they come in a variety of sizes and
shapes from huge tractor trailers
capable of hauling tons to weekend
motorhomes used for pleasure by
thousands all share one common trait
they burn gasoline or diesel fuel to
make them go engineers at NASA's Dryden
Flight Research Center in California
have been studying for several years how
to help make these vehicles more
fuel-efficient aerospace engineer ed
Saltzman tells how we began with a
vehicle that looked a little different
like than what this does here we had
square corners on the front and square
corners on the back to represent the the
worst in vehicle design for high-volume
pars and we documented the drag of that
configuration and then we begin
aerodynamic refinements rounding the
front corners as you can see and we
smoothed the underbody so that the
muffler and the axles are covered up in
the transmission and this reduced the
drag too we compared that configuration
with the the original one the most
recent tests were run with the
configuration you see now where we have
a partial boat tail and we just compare
the deceleration characteristics of each
of these configurations and relate them
back to the original lewin we started
with for six decades nasa has been
studying aerodynamic problems associated
with making airplanes faster and more
fuel-efficient it was logical than that
it could apply this same expertise to
ground transportation vehicles the
results have been very encouraging by
rounding the corners and enclosing its
underbody this van has about seventy
percent lower drag than before the
modifications the technique of reducing
air resistance as the van travels along
can be directly translated into fuel
savings about thirty percent fuel
savings in this particular instance the
reshaped van is actually aerodynamically
superior for its size to most sports
cars on the road today these successful
aerodynamic tests are helping change the
shape of vans motorhomes and trucks make
the more fuel-efficient another field
which has benefited from NASA spin-off
is medicine our next report which is
from 1982 is about a space-age aid for
coronary diagnosis in August 1981 as
voyager 2 made its way through the solar
system from jupiter to saturn beaming
dramatic photographs back to earth
researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in California using
sophisticated image processing
techniques were busy enhancing
significant areas of these images for
scientific study today the people at JPL
working in conjunction with scientists
from the University of Southern
California are applying these same
space-related computerized image
analysis techniques to the earthly
treatment of arteriosclerosis and
stenosis of the arteries diseases that
affect thousands of Americans dr. Edwin
s beckenbaugh deputy manager of the
Lyell medical program at JPL explains
the basic problem that we're looking at
is an insufficient supply of blood to
the heart the blood that the heart pumps
does not supply the heart it's supplied
by blood through the coronary arteries
knowing how much of that blood flow is
being cut off by the stenotic disease
process it is narrowing of the coronary
arteries it's very important because if
there's an insufficient amount of blood
going to a part of a heart the doctor
has to do a bypass operation or some
other kind of open-heart surgery that's
a very risky procedure it's not
something you want to do unless you're
sure you need to a special type of x ray
called an angiogram is made by injecting
contrast dye into the diseased artery
this allows the computer operator or
physician to locate the area of concern
and indicate it to the computer by
positioning the electronic cross
accordingly once the computer has
received this information it can in turn
supply the position with what he needs
to make an accurate diagnosis the degree
of stenosis or narrowing in this
particular vessel is such that in
general a doctor provided with this
image would have a hard time deciding
whether the narrowing was sufficiently
important the warrant bypass surgery or
not to different doctors given this
particular image might well differ in
their opinion of the degree of narrowing
by Oh ten or fifteen percent and that
difference is exactly the difference
that becomes important when you're
considering a serious operation like
bypass surgery the benefit of the
computer is not so much that it is
better than a doctor but it is more
consistent to calculate the degree of
disease present the computer first
indicates the edges of the artery with
black lines the white lines which just
appeared are the computers best estimate
of where the walls of the artery would
be if there were no disease present
using these as guidelines statistics
such as the degree of narrowing can be
computed and printed out for the
patient's file the importance of the
individual seated at the control panel
of the medical image processing station
be it a JPL researcher now or a
physician in the near future should not
be overlooked one thing we've really
found out in this whole program is that
if you take the individual the human out
of the loop totally and try to automate
the whole procedure using the computer
you are almost certainly doomed to
failure so to have the operator in the
in the picture to provide the computer
with a beginning point to make take care
of mistakes that the computer makes and
to finally decide whether the job that
the computer is done is adequate is
vitally important the medical image
processing station using space gained
expertise to
extend the frontiers of medical science
our last video taped segment was really
produced for a convention display but we
thought you would find it interesting it
deals with feral fluids which are
magnetic liquids early use of the feral
fluids was intended for rocket fuels but
the feral fluids have found other uses
in other fields we needed a magnetic
liquid for control of spacecraft liquid
propellants under zero gravity
conditions in space now we have
ferrofluid use your imagination
ferrofluid is a liquid in which sub
microscopic particles of iron oxide are
permanently suspended in other words a
fuel with magnetic properties the
technology we developed to solve our
fuel problems in space is now being used
to entertain you with higher quality
audio reproduction everyday ferrofluid
research led to development of fuels
that are controllable in the
weightlessness of space this eliminates
the problem in space vehicles cause
chugging this chugging effect is from
lack of fuel or even flow of fuel
through the engines as a result the
commercial applications of ferrofluid
are providing a wide variety of new
products for consumer use and some major
improvements in old-time favorites
ferrofluid serves as an excellent heat
transfer medium for cooling the voice
coil in a speaker so the system's
ability to handle higher power is
increased and speaker failure is
decreased for the manufacturers the
bottom line is better quality fewer
returns or defects and lower
manufacturing costs dr. Ronald Moskowitz
and dr. Ronald rosin wife have been
working on the development of magnetic
fluid and with the cooperation of NASA's
technology utilization services
department they obtained a vice
to use the technology that NASA Lewis
Research Center had developed putting
all this together they founded
ferrofluid excoriation and have
successfully advanced and applied the
technology for a wide range of
commercial uses applications have ranged
from integrated circuit production
visual displays analytical
instrumentation automated machine tools
and industrial processes from us to you
working for you and with you the
technology is here which your ideas can
grow let's work together call the
technology utilization office nearest
you for more information if you would
like to contact NASA about spin-offs
please watch the credits at the end of
the show on where to write or call
that's all we have for this edition of
NASA images but before we go let me
remind you that you're cordially invited
to see the displays at the Visitor
Center here at the NASA Lewis Research
Center we're located near the Hopkins
international airport in Cleveland
admission is free until next time this
is Lynn Bondurant saying goodbye
you