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The future of aircraft may count very similar to today ’s superficially — but under the hood ( or sitting next to the tail fins ) they will likely be quite dissimilar . That ’s the hereafter NASA is hop to raise withfive research laurels worth $ 11.5 million .
The Advanced Aircraft Concepts for Environmental Sustainability 2050 ( AACES ) programme is an other - level , long - nip go-ahead to identify “ transformative solutions ” that could inch the carbon - regurgitate tune travelling diligence toward sustainability .
These award are nowhere nigh enough to make a workings aircraft , of line , and these concepts are just that , concepts — but a duad million buck can easily be the deviation between a powerful newfangled engineering science sitting on a shelf in a lab or getting some real - humanity testing .
Two of the award are more focussed than others . Electra , for example , already has a wing prototype for its electric aircraft , and the laurels money will go toward advancing its exist technical school . JetZero is combining a cryogenic fluent H fuel source with the unusual fuse fender fuselage you see render up top .
The other three honour are more general . Georgia Tech will look into new fuels , propulsion systems , and configurations that seem promise for its ATH2ENA programme . Pratt and Whitney will be looking into “ a broad suite ” of propulsion tech in quest of lower fuel wasting disease and emanation ( a harm simplification method acting , it seems ) .
Aurora Flight Sciences seems to have the broadest mandate of all — the Boeing - owned troupe will “ perform a comprehensive , ‘ open - aperture ’ geographic expedition of technologies and aircraft construct . ” One hopes they were a moment more specific in their covering !
Interestingly , none of the electric propulsion and flight startup we ’ve seen collecting big amount of investor money are present here . Perhaps the juice was not worth the power play when they have VC money on rap — or else their visions for the future of air travel are too dissimilar . ( They do mostly make personal chopper , after all . )
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The AACES labor is part of the Advanced Air Transport Technology project , itself part of the Advanced Air Vehicles Program . If there are any more layer on top of that , they did n’t name them .
