“The purpose is to get as lots of the fallacious concepts out of the best way as early as doable.
“So we’ll provide you with some thought, particularly on the analysis facet, and generally it can appear actually sensible on the serviette or in a dialog with one different individual.
“[When I started working on electric aircraft propulsion,] I used to be not accustomed to all the electrical ins and outs. I believed energy would simply be out there, and I may use it once I wished it. [Our concepts had] all these little hiccups — how they get built-in in the true system, how the battery techniques are going to interaction, and all the additional security issues that we have to think about—testing allowed us to determine issues a little bit bit earlier and [give us] a broader perspective.
“The important thing factor is that whenever you’re engaged on one thing that’s actually laborious, I feel the entire expectation is that you simply’re going to fail. So we attempt to fail as many occasions as we will early on. So once we’re getting nearer to an precise demonstration, we’re fairly assured that at that time, we’ve talked to the precise folks, everybody’s on board, and we’re going to have a protected, bigger take a look at marketing campaign.
“It’s at all times higher to fail earlier on and study as a lot as you may.”
— Joe Connolly, Deputy for Electrified Plane Propulsion Integration, Glenn Analysis Middle
Picture Credit score: NASA / Jef Janis
Interviewer: NASA / Thalia Patrinos
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