NASA still has some airplanes

[mikegarrison]

 

[DAL59]

Not "still".  That's actually half their job.   Some of their airplane concepts look really cool.

[mikegarrison]

5 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Not "still".  That's actually half their job.

Not by budget, it's not.

[razark]

Some?!?

I see (hear, more often) T-38s nearly every day.  There's the three WB-57s that show up once in a while (they have their own distinct sound, like nothing else around here).  There's the Guppy that shows up occasionally.  There's a few business jets and the C-9 that replaced the Vomit Comet, as well.  And that's just JSC/Ellington Field.  There's numerous other centers, many of them with aircraft they operate.  Edwards AFB is home to Armstrong Flight Research Center.  It's not just a landing site for space shuttles.

[GoSlash27]

48 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Not by budget, it's not.

mikegarrison,
 "Space" costs a lot more than "Aeronautics". I don't know this for certain, but I suspect NASA spends a lot more man hours conducting aeronautical research than space research.

 Best,
-Slashy

[mikegarrison]

27 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

mikegarrison,
 "Space" costs a lot more than "Aeronautics". I don't know this for certain, but I suspect NASA spends a lot more man hours conducting aeronautical research than space research.

 Best,
-Slashy

Well, I work with the NASA aero people from time to time, and I doubt that. But I don't know for sure.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Quote

NASA still has some airplanes

Of course, it does.
Otherwise how will they fly over the terraformed Moon?

 

[Racescort666]

I have a friend who worked for NASA and he frequently talks about NASA's first A. Also, he put together a pretty good slideshow over on oppositelock a few years back: https://oppositelock.kinja.com/i-heart-experimentation-1440920258

Yes, they still do a lot with aircraft and aeronautics, it's just not as widely publicized as the wiz-bang rockets. IMO, NASA is a research organization and has no business building rockets that aren't pushing new concepts when their commercial counterparts are much more cost effective at doing the mundane. They should have the knowledge and the capacity to do research.

[YNM]

I could only imagine, something with "Aeronautics" in the name would be somewhat concerned with things in the air !

 

I want to ask though, as NASA was made from NACA, and NACA made airfoils that even today is still used, does NASA still do research on such ends, maybe fuselage, or new airfoil, or such ? Do they still do tests on less than X planes stuff ? Are they just slow to spill out or what ?