NASA Ames Research To Close Largest Windtunnels

Makarand writes "The world's largest and second largest wind tunnels operated by the NASA Ames Research center will be shutdown after 60 years and may remain shut unless major defense contracts from the Pentagon or the private sectors are available. The largest windtunnel will be fired up for the last time in June for four hours. It will test the parachutes that will land the Mars exploration rovers onto the Red Planet next year. Fewer defense contracts and the increasing use of computer simulations are being cited as reasons for the windtunnels to face closure."

Comments

I�m surprised.

[insecuritiez]

Super computers are great for this sort of research. But I'm surprised that large wind tunnels aren't still needed. The space gained by scrapping the tunnels will be taken up again by climate controlled rooms to house expensive super computers. You'd think that there would be needs where only the largest wind tunnels would do. I guess not any more.

This isn't absolutely horrid...

[TWX]

Yeah, I can see how people aren't happy about this. We lose something that can be used under short notice if they're mothballed. We reduce the number of jobs. However, I won't go so far as to call this bad. We aren't likely to forget the technology that goes into these systems, and we can always build them again. If they only mothball them, they might be able to be refurbished and opened again, similar to how the US Navy's Battleship fleet was brought back into service for a time. If they raze them, it won't be as easy, but it'll still be possible.

I'm just glad that the kind of world that built them isn't here. Not that widespread fear of terrorism, suspension of civil rights without public outcry, and widespread imperialism are good, but at least we're unlikely to see the kind of war that ravages an entire continent for a decade, or at least not ours.

Note: I wrote this at almost three in the morning, so if it's a bunch of crap, that's probably why.