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Multidisciplinary
Design, Analysis, and
Optimization Branch
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EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES: THE NASA AEROQUIZ
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Week of 4/3/00:
My apologies for not setting up this week's quiz -- I was on
a business trip.
- The Aeroquiz Editor.
Week of 4/10/00:
Q:
Antarctica is the world's best hunting ground for meteorites.
So much so that NASA and Carnegie Mellon University have constructed
Nomad: an experimental meteorite-hunting robot vehicle. The Nomad
rover evaluates images taken by its high resolution cameras, and
it even has a metal detector and a spectrometer to chemically
analyze the rocks that it finds. But why search the inhospitable,
frigid polar ice cap at the bottom of the world? What makes
Antarctica such an appealing meteorite hunting ground?
A:
Meteorites land around the globe, but they are much easier to
find in Antarctica's vast, empty ice fields. They are not
easily camouflaged by surrounding terrain like they would be
elsewhere. In many areas there, any rocks found weathered out of the
ice would have to have fallen from the sky. Moreover, Antarctic
geology works in scientists' favor. The shifting ice pack can
swallow objects on its surface, and then can carry them along until
they bump into an obstacle like the Transantarctic Mountains.
There, wind and evaporation eventually uncover piles of rocks.
Many of the rocks at the base of the Transantarctic Mountains
are not of this Earth. In fact, NASA and academia made a
stunning discovery in the 1980s by identifying lunar and
Martian origins of some of the meteorites!
No one got the correct answer!
- The Aeroquiz Editor.
Week of 4/17/00:
Q:
As early as 1890, aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley
named his rubber band-powered model flying machines aerodromes.
He continued with this naming convention over the years, ending
with his full-sized, piloted (and unsuccessful) aerodromes in
late 1903. Of course, flying machines eventually
became known as airplanes or aircraft, and the
word aerodrome was later used primarily by the British for
their airports. Why didn't the word aerodrome catch on for
airplanes, and why would it be used later by the British for
something completely different? And who said engineers don't
know anything about entomology? Er ... etymology.
No one got the correct answer! The question stands another week!
- The Aeroquiz Editor.
Week of 4/24/00:
Q:
As early as 1890, aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley
named his rubber band-powered model flying machines aerodromes.
He continued with this naming convention over the years, ending
with his full-sized, piloted (and unsuccessful) aerodromes in
late 1903. Of course, flying machines eventually
became known as airplanes or aircraft, and the
word aerodrome was later used primarily by the British for
their airports. Why didn't the word aerodrome catch on for
airplanes, and why would it be used later by the British for
something completely different? And who said engineers don't
know anything about entomology? Er ... etymology.
A:
In 1890, Langley asked a classical scholar for help naming
his model flying machines. Langley chose the word aerodromoi,
which is Greek for "air runner." Unfortunately, Langley misrepresented
the word as aerodrome, which, when strictly translated from
the Greek, means a place from which a machine would fly. Because
of this, the word aerodrome was never applied to airplanes
by anyone other than Langley, and the British later used the word
to describe airports.
Congratulations to "glfras."
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