Volume 10, Number 4 • July/August 2002 • Welcome

NASA’s Nanotechnology Initiative

By Minoo N. Dastoor, PhD
Senior Advisor to the Associate Administrator
NASA Office of Aerospace Technology

Acritical element of science missions and human exploration and development of space is safe and affordable access to space and dramatically reduced transit times for in-space transportation systems. Concurrently, NASA’s aeronautics goals are focused on two areas. The first goal is developing technology to support new generations of aircraft that are safer, quieter, more fuel efficient, environmentally cleaner and more economical to operate than today’s aircraft. The second goal is developing technology to enable new approaches to air systems management that can greatly expand the capacity of our air space and make it even safer than it is today. In pursuance of these goals, NASA needs tools and technologies that must push beyond the present state of the art. NASA spacecraft must function safely and reliably in the extremely harsh space environment. This places demands on NASA technologies–demands that are highly unique to the agency.

Virtually all of NASA’s vision for the future of space exploration–and new generations of aircraft–is dependent upon mass, power requirements and the size and intelligence of components that make up air and space vehicles, spacecraft and rovers. Dramatic increases in the strength-to-weight ratio of structural materials offer the potential to reduce launch and flight costs to acceptable levels. Such structural materials can also lead to increases in payload and range for aircraft, which can translate into longer, more expansive missions. Packing densities and power consumption are absolutely critical to realizing the sophisticated on-board computing capability required for such stressful applications as autonomous exploration of planetary bodies for evidence of simple life forms or their precursors.

The integration of sensing, computing and wireless transmission will enable true health management of reusable launch vehicles and aircraft of the future. To do this, NASA aircraft and space systems will have to be much more capable than they are today. They will need biological characteristics that include autonomy to be able to think for themselves; self-reliance to identify, diagnose and correct internal problems and failures; self-repair to overcome damage; adaptability to function and explore in new and unknown environments; and efficiency to operate with very limited resources. These are typically characteristics of robust biological systems, and they will also be the characteristics of future aerospace systems. Acquisition of such intelligence, adaptability and computer power go beyond the present capabilities of microelectronic devices.

Current state-of-the-art microelectronics is rapidly approaching its limit in terms of feature size, and future enhancements will need novel alternatives to microelectronics fabrication and design as they are known today. The use of nanotechnology will afford a new class of electronics. Nanotechnology will, in addition to its inherent smaller feature size, harness the full power of quantum effects, which are operable only at nanoscale distances. Not only should performance enhancement at the quantitative level occur due to the higher packing density of nanoscale components, but also the emergence of qualitatively new functionalities associated with harnessing the full power of quantum effects. The hybridization of nanolithography and self-assembly could serve as the basis of an engineering revolution in the fabrication of complex systems.

We are already seeing the potential of nanotechnology through extensive research into the production and use of carbon nanotubes, nano-phase materials and molecular electronics. For example, on the basis of computer simulations and available experimental data, some specific forms of carbon nanotubes appear to possess extraordinary strength. The full potential of nanotechnology for the systems NASA needs is in its association with biology. Nanotechnology will enable us to take the notion of “small but powerful” to its extreme limits, but biology will provide many of the paradigms and processes for doing so. Biology has inherent characteristics that enable the building of the systems needed–selectivity and sensitivity at a scale of a few atoms; the ability of single units to massively reproduce with near-zero error rates; organizational capability to self-assemble into highly complex systems; the ability to adapt form and function to changing conditions; the ability to detect damage and perform self-repair; and the ability to communicate among themselves. Biologically inspired sensors will be sensitive to a single photon. Data storage based on DNA will be a trillion times more dense than current media, and supercomputers modeled after the brain will use as little as one billionth the power of existing designs.

Biological concepts and nanotechnology will enable the creation of both the “brains and the body” of future systems with the characteristics needed. Together, nanotechnology, biology and information technologies form a powerful and intimate scientific and technological triad. Q

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