Frontier Research Ideas

For a distant day and a Ph.D. degree to begin exploring such exciting questions. Many want very much to join the search immediately, and some of them have.Given a moderate amount of professional guidance, it should be possible for you, too, to learn enough background facts to scout out at least a small corner of new territory. Whether or not you actually make any discoveries is rela¬tively unimportant, say senior scientists. Much more important is that indescribable thrill of finding truth for yourself.

And once you experience that, it is not likely that you will ever forget it. The following collection of interesting questions, inven¬tions, discoveries and suggestions has been assembled to stimulate your imagination or pique your curiosity enough to start the wheels grinding. A great many of these are drawn from reports of current work discussed in newspapers and science publications such as Science News Letter, Science, Scientific American, etc. Other ideas can be found in Thousands of Science Projects, published by Science Service, which lists the winning projects from the Science Talent Searches, Na¬tional Science Fairs and affiliated science fairs. Still other ideas can be found in the publications listed in the final chapter of this book.

Aeronautics and Space Sciences

A man-made “nose,” more powerful than the human nose, is needed for sensing danger odors in military aircraft. Odor-detecting agents of the past, when used in experiments, have proved toxic to crews. An automatic aileron trim control has been developed for keeping small private planes on course in bad weather.
A navigational “brain” has been devised to help control the flight of high-speed planes through intricate flight patterns. A navigational push button that remembers the way home has been developed.

Progress continues on production of a chemical-fuel-burning bomber designed to reach 2200 miles per hour and altitudes of nearly 100,000 feet and to make round-trip transcontinental runs without refueling. A new paint with only a small chance of detection by radar has been developed. A midget low-cost wind tunnel has been built to determine air flow up to three times the speed of sound. How is the FAA planning to conduct its survey of jet fatigue effects on crews?

Ion propulsion, electrostatic acceleration of charged par¬ticles of colloid size and plasma acceleration are among the forms of propulsion devices being developed for space vehicles. These devices, along with containment (in the hope of controlling the energy of nuclear fusion) and flow modifi¬cation, form the three fields of magnetofluidmechanics, the new science which will undoubtedly have practical applica¬tions soon.

Some important problems in aeronautics include: convert¬ing heat directly into electricity; getting more power per pound of fuel; propulsion in space-plasma jets, ion and photon rockets; finding lightweight, long-duration systems to provide electrical power in space without nuclear radiation; finding ways to protect man against radiation in space; study of cosmic rays; study of properties of intermediate isotopes for use in lightweight shielding. Theories concerning the gravity fields of stars may provide new understanding of the nature of atomic nuclei.