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Sometimes it takes a rocket scientist with Dr. Pamela Nenges.

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Hi, this is Dr. Pamela Nenges with Sometimes It Takes a Rocket Scientist, and today we have

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Dr. Robert Bartholomew for our premier podcast, Enjoy Part 1. Bart, how are you doing?

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Wonderful. I'm actually in Ohio where I was when we were first connected, and I'm still working

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at 83 years old, and I'm working a little bit on hypersonics.

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Well, I want to introduce you as our premier podcast for Sometimes It Takes a Rocket Scientist.

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Yes, right, and I'm one. Yeah, and to say that, hey, you were responsible for some of my training.

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I was getting my doctorate, and really quickly you were head of the National Aerospace

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plane, the X-30, you were the director for the United States Air Force.

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Yes, yes. And when I met you, you were head of the systems directorate as director,

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and as director of the Air Force base. And I did very quickly, I did my doctorate in integrated

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propulsion and airframe kind of stuff, controls, and we both had serious interest in machine learning

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and AI. I had my bachelor's degree actually in biomathematics, artificial intelligence.

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Wonderful. You were a pioneer there.

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Yeah, I was.

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You were.

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That's why I did it. I did a student-associated program in math and developmental neurobiology

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because you had one course in computer science you could take in AI at that point in the

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universe.

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That's amazing.

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Yeah, and you were lucky to find somebody who could actually teach it.

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Yeah, and now everybody's an AI expert.

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Oh, God, and it's really unfortunate because most of the AI we're talking about is so limited

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and so narrowly defined, and I wish Congress and the other folks would get ahead of the

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curve, but that's another conversation for another day because we want to talk about

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really some of the early innovation in high-speed vehicle work, and that was horizontal as opposed

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to vertical, so not rockets or launch systems as we know them, not the rockets, but as space

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planes, rocket planes, and of course the X-15 was one of the first.

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That was a very complex vehicle for its day, and some 40 years later, you guys took on

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a really challenging concept in the X-30 program, and I can remember you telling me that it

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was this wonderful vehicle, but from a military perspective, you could take it down with a

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pea shooter.

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Right, that's right.

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Well the problem with hypersonics is that if you mess up the flow in any way, it's going

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down.

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It's a wonderful concept, scramjets and things like that, and especially if I understand

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there's a new flat-bottom society, which is the part of the hypersonics program, and we

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had a flat bottom with a big scooper, essentially, and some very complicated engines in there,

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but the problem with complication is that it's kind of like the digital world too, right?

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You are vulnerable.

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Well, I think you know I've been working on some different models and different concepts

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over some 20 years.

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I did my work in this integrated kind of concept, which I carried on and developed some functional

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structures, smart structures to do things, and we came up with a pretty cool space plane

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two-stage to orbit, nothing terribly fancy, and it is the aerodynamic design, if you want

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to call it that.

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It's still kind of brute forcing things, you know how that goes, a hybrid of lifting body

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way wider kind of vehicle, and it's done a great job.

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So in your mind, as we move into hypersonics, what can we learn from what you did at NASP?

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Well I think the biggest lesson was not technical, it was probably managerial, and there was

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a positive lesson as well as a negative lesson.

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The positive aspect of it was we got everybody in the entire country involved in the NASP

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program.

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It was kicked off, and maybe your listeners would like to know this, by President Ronald

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Reagan's last State of the Union address in 1986.

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He got up like John Kennedy had done about 20, well maybe 10, 20 years before, and said

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we're going to build an airplane that will fly around the world and will fly into space.

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This is Ronald Reagan.

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He neglected to say when, and if you remember Kennedy's speech, he says in three years we're

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going to the moon.

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Okay well Reagan was careful enough, and he was a wonderful man.

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I actually worked for him and Dan Quayle and George H.W. Bush during the NASP program,

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and I did get to meet these very important people, and I remember Dan Quayle about two

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years later, he was sort of in charge of the program because the Vice President is in charge

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of NASA, Air Force, BDRNE, DARPA, you know all the different groups that were involved

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in hypersonics, and he looked at me and said, can we do this?

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I said, we can do it.

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Again, like Reagan, I never mentioned when, and so he said, well let's go do it.

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I think the biggest lesson from NASP was, I would say organizational managerial, and

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that is you can get the nation to work together and to share technical information in a collaborative

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way by promising them that later if there's money to be made, you can go competitive.

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So we essentially ran a five-year program with everybody sort of giving their best,

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including the companies.

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Now that's the hardest part, right?

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I think anyways the companies are a bit reticent to share their information, but we had everybody,

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Boeing and Lockheed and everybody involved in the program.

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The ones that kind of emerged as the leaders were Rockwell, McDonnell Douglas, General

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Dynamics, and that to me was the most important thing that if it's a national program, if

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it's one that you know you get the president to say it's important, kind of like the Moon

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program, but in this case Reagan said let's fly around the world, they agreed.

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And so my biggest job was managing literally 5,000 people in many, many different agencies.

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But I think that's worth saying because if there's going to be a real push for hypersonics,

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however they want to do it, I mean I'm not going to suggest any particular agency or

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whatever, it really should be joint agency, joint companies, joint academics work together.

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And that'll get you very, very far.

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The negative lesson was that we over-promised.

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I mean not intentionally, not knowingly.

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I mean after all, NAS ended in 1991 and so if you just do the numbers, okay that's about

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30 years ago, 25, 30 years, 35 years ago, right?

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Yeah, it's 24 already.

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And we didn't have the technology then, but we thought let's give it a go.

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And I think we tried very hard.

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We got a lot of people very, very excited.

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And I think the silver lining around over-promising is that people don't know better and so they

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try things that are extremely high risk but high payoff.

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And we did indeed get some breakthroughs, particularly in the propulsion area.

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I think that was our biggest good because we worked with scramjets, we worked with scramjets,

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we worked with low-speed systems that kind of went from Mach 1 to Mach 3.

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We already knew how to do Mach 3 because of the Blackbird work.

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And I flew the Blackbird and tried to control the engines above 3, 3.5.

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And then that was not the biggest problem.

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The problem today and then was how do you get to 7 or 8 and how do you do that stably?

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And I love your concept.

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I think there's two ways of looking at what you propose.

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The way you have done it, which I think is very, very sound, very practical, very doable.

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The rocket to get you up to a certain speed and then you go from there.

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I also think, and I think there are some investigations where you use ramjets and scramjets and whatever

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the first stage system is to get to about Mach 6 or 7 and then you use rocketry of some

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sort because there's very little air up there.

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That was the NAS concept.

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Get up to 7 or 8 and then now we had this fascinating concept of catching the air on

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the way up and using it as the oxygen.

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So, it's doable.

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It's accessible as you say, it's doable.

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There's so many programs now.

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I'm sure you and your listeners are much more aware than I am of all the programs going

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on.

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There isn't a school of note that doesn't have a hypersonic activity program, Institute

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even.

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There's not a company in the aerospace world that isn't at least playing with this thing

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and seeing what's going on.

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The government, my goodness, the government has so many people going on this.

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James Weber, who was one of my pals, my colleagues, even in the NAS days is now heading up the

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DDRNE program, which is the DOD program in hypersonics.

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I haven't talked to James yet, but I hope he pulls together the team.

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So good lesson, bad lesson.

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Collaboration is wonderful.

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And it's hard to get in a competitive world.

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But on the other hand, it pays off tremendously.

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So I'll stop there.

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Well that's cool.

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And I think that's really interesting because one of the, I don't know if you recall, but

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my internship, because I had to do a doctoral internship because of the program I was doing,

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was looking at using expert systems with AI agents and how you manage large scale engineering

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and databases for programs, programming.

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And in the recent years, my father started his career on the Manhattan Project.

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He was an engineer for DuPont.

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And I have all his papers and I've been going through them and reading.

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It's amazing.

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What you're talking about with NASP is similar to what they did on the Manhattan Project,

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though commercially from an enterprise perspective, it was radically different.

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DuPont didn't take any real money for the project other than their expenses because

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in their mind at that point, the world was a different world, that the new science they

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were learning would change their world, which it did.

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I see some extraordinary similarities between NASP and DuPont.

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And NASP was a classified program.

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And the one company I want to do a call out to because they were so nice to me when I

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was working on my doctorate, I can remember calling you in your office one day and I think

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you had a general sitting in the lobby.

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I think I did.

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I always loved that.

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And I said, hey, who do you know with Slush Hydrogen?

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And you gave me like three names and telephone numbers and I called them and one guy was

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like a VP of Ball Aerospace.

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Yeah, right.

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A wonderful guy and he sat on the phone with me for like an hour and gave me a tutorial

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on Slush Hydrogen.

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So working with you was fabulous because all I had to say, well, Bart said, oh, what time

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do you want to talk?

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Well, that was the good old days.

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They don't really respond that well to me right now.

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I mean, we're still a lot of friends.

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You know, Pam, you're one of the first that's directly reached out to me.

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But a lot of people, yesterday I was invited to kick off the Air Force Institute Technology

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Hypersonics Program.

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And I don't know if he was Jose Cambreros.

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Does that ring a bell?

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Yeah, it does.

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Yeah.

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He's running the AFFET program now.

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So I think of you, I think of James Weber, I think of Jose as young, young people when

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the NAS program was going on.

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I mean, you were...

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I was a kid when the NAS program was going on, but now I'm middle-aged.

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I'm an actor, for God sakes.

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My followers in middle-aged, now my colleagues, they're gone.

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Plus some of them are truly gone, but most of them have long retired.

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And every once in a while, I don't know if you remember Ted Wierszpinauski.

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Oh, love Ted.

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W plus 12.

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Yeah.

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W plus 12.

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So he is living in Florida in Punta Gorda.

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And we just met up the other day and we had great old wine parties, you know, reminiscing

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the fun days of NAS.

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He was a test pilot for the X-29.

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Yeah, I know.

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I'd love to interview him at some point.

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Oh, I'll tell him.

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Yeah, I'll ask him or I'll give you his address.

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Okay.

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That's great.

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I'm a tester.

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You know, I got 15 years as a flight test engineer because I've done so many...

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I've driven everything but a gyrocopter or a submarine.

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Okay.

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I've driven everything.

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Did you get a chance to fly in the Blackbird?

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No, I have not.

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Well, I did.

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And I actually did some engine control during the flight.

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And we actually...

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I don't know if I should say this publicly, but I think we actually went too far.

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It went a little bit faster than what the engine...

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And the pilot said, whoa, you know, we better get down to 3.5 or whatever, you know, what's

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the max speed?

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And we were up to 90,000, 92,000 feet.

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I saw the curvature of the Earth, you know.

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And I think this is kind of a trivial reason for hypersonics, but it's a personal and maybe

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even spiritual reason that if you get up that high with a hypersonic vehicle, you don't

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have to go all the way to lower Earth orbit, which you can, of course, with that vehicle.

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But you get the same effect.

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It's called the overview effect that the astronauts have had where they looked out on this little

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blue ball and, you know, and then see anything but peace because from that altitude, you

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are getting this atmosphere and all that.

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But then you think to yourself, boy, there's a lot of trouble going on down there.

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I hope they solve it pretty quick.

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Yeah, we don't have borders drawn on the planet.

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No, that's right.

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That's a great point.

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Great point.

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Yeah.

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Well, one thing I want to do really quickly is that you had an interesting background

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before you became an SES executive person in the Air Force.

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You were MIT trained, Ohio State trained.

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You did work at Tela Homa.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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Did you work at MHD?

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Magneto hydrodynamics.

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Yeah, that was fun.

232
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And we still haven't captured the potential of magneto hydrodynamics.

233
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Big law of war.

234
00:16:21,600 --> 00:16:22,600
That's how we met.

235
00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:23,600
That's how we met.

236
00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:31,320
I was introduced to you because I was working on a wind tunnel in my workshop slash laboratory,

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00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:37,080
which is a 200-year-old carriage house, and basically built a little wind tunnel where

238
00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:46,360
I could do, because I was trained in physics, look at ionized profiles for different aerodynamic

239
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:55,240
effects in terms of leading edge extensions and how do we change airflow, because a big

240
00:16:55,240 --> 00:17:02,440
part of what we want to do in hypersonics is reduce the thermal profile of the vehicle,

241
00:17:02,440 --> 00:17:11,360
particularly at the bow and just in the front part of the space plane or spacecraft or aircraft,

242
00:17:11,360 --> 00:17:15,560
space plane I should say.

243
00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:20,840
And that was, you know, for many years, the vehicle we had, basically the front bow of

244
00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:23,040
it was a block of machine titanium.

245
00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:24,040
Yeah.

246
00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:26,080
It's guaranteed it wouldn't disintegrate.

247
00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:27,080
Right.

248
00:17:27,080 --> 00:17:28,080
It's pretty hot up there.

249
00:17:28,080 --> 00:17:31,320
Because you want to keep that shockwave separated.

250
00:17:31,320 --> 00:17:32,320
Yeah.

251
00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:34,640
Because if it can lose your separation, you are really in trouble.

252
00:17:34,640 --> 00:17:35,640
You're in big trouble.

253
00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:36,640
Yeah.

254
00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:42,200
Ted Wierszmonowski, since we just mentioned him, said, if I fly this plane and we get

255
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:45,320
in trouble, just like you said, Ted, I'm going up.

256
00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:46,320
I'm not going down.

257
00:17:46,320 --> 00:17:47,320
I'm firing the rockets.

258
00:17:47,320 --> 00:17:48,320
Get out of here.

259
00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:56,280
How was the reentry profile for that?

260
00:17:56,280 --> 00:17:57,280
For NAS?

261
00:17:57,280 --> 00:17:58,280
Uh huh.

262
00:17:58,280 --> 00:17:59,280
Yeah.

263
00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:00,720
Well, of course, we never really tested it.

264
00:18:00,720 --> 00:18:03,960
I mean, we just have wind tunnel testing and things like that.

265
00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:10,840
Well, the reentry is a whole different situation because the airplane at that point is much

266
00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:11,840
lighter.

267
00:18:11,840 --> 00:18:14,200
You know, you've used up every possible thing.

268
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:19,760
And you're right, slush hydrogen was the preferred fuel for the NAS program.

269
00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:21,240
That's always been an issue.

270
00:18:21,240 --> 00:18:27,120
And just because of the difficulty, the logistics of slush hydrogen.

271
00:18:27,120 --> 00:18:31,800
I really do believe that a lot of the work going on right now in the Scranton world and

272
00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:37,480
the hypersonics world are looking at fuels that are much easier to deal with.

273
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:42,080
May not be JP whatever, but it might be something else.

274
00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:48,000
The reentry, we did do a lot of work on the reentry and it was quite different than the

275
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:49,000
takeoff obviously.

276
00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:50,680
You know, you got a lot of speed.

277
00:18:50,680 --> 00:19:00,880
I would think that it might gain from learning how the shuttles came down.

278
00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:05,160
And one of my good friends, Charlie Kamada, I don't know if you met him or know him.

279
00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:12,040
He's an astronaut that went up a year after the tragic tile problem that crashed the vehicle

280
00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:13,040
over Texas.

281
00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:15,880
He was a materials engineer.

282
00:19:15,880 --> 00:19:21,120
And Charlie went up with the new set of tiles and systems that they had.

283
00:19:21,120 --> 00:19:25,800
And he says, you know, you can't ignore reentry here.

284
00:19:25,800 --> 00:19:30,080
Just as Ted said, it's safer upstairs than it is downstairs.

285
00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:35,840
He was referring to there ain't anything up there you're going to hit, you know, whatever.

286
00:19:35,840 --> 00:19:38,440
But coming down, you better watch yourself.

287
00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:41,280
If anything goes wrong there, it's a plummet.

288
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:47,560
And of course, that tile catastrophe did crash the plane and I think it fell off or something.

289
00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:51,920
So Charlie went up on the it took a year before NASA was willing to fly again.

290
00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:53,680
And so Charlie went up on that.

291
00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:57,880
A big part of it was they lost the gear door on the left wing.

292
00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:00,160
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

293
00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:02,760
But it coming down ain't no simple thing.

294
00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:05,880
No, no, you don't want to skip.

295
00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:06,880
No, right.

296
00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:08,720
Yeah, you don't want to skip.

297
00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:12,720
And you know, when I fly an airplane just like you do, coming down is usually pretty

298
00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:14,960
controlled, especially with commercial airlines.

299
00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:18,640
I mean, you could you could do it blindfolded, but still, you know, you don't want to mess

300
00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:19,640
up.

301
00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:21,320
The ground is beneath you.

302
00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:22,320
Yeah.

303
00:20:22,320 --> 00:20:23,320
Yeah.

304
00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:24,320
Hey, another question.

305
00:20:24,320 --> 00:20:28,600
You were director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

306
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:29,600
Yes.

307
00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:30,600
Yeah.

308
00:20:30,600 --> 00:20:31,600
Yeah.

309
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:32,600
Serious question.

310
00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:38,360
I was at one time a member of probably close to a dozen professional societies when I was

311
00:20:38,360 --> 00:20:40,080
younger.

312
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:45,440
And do you think professional societies today are doing everything they should be doing

313
00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:50,560
in terms of the formation of engineers and the way businesses are operating in this country?

314
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:54,960
Because we seem to be ignoring small businesses where a lot of the innovation is.

315
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:55,960
Absolutely.

316
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:58,920
So, you know, that's a that's a fascinating question.

317
00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:03,800
I thought about that myself, because, you know, when you think of national programs,

318
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:08,320
you know, what what is a better national entity than an institute, a society like like a university

319
00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:09,320
like you just mentioned?

320
00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:15,040
I mean, they supposedly have no prejudices, you know, all everything's good, everything

321
00:21:15,040 --> 00:21:17,360
that moves science forward.

322
00:21:17,360 --> 00:21:20,080
And they are very important with young people.

323
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:24,680
I think, you know, I was a member of AIAA director.

324
00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:30,040
I used to go to all these high schools and colleges and all that and try to the other

325
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:32,360
thing they can do is steer.

326
00:21:32,360 --> 00:21:38,920
I don't mean negatively steer the kids, the students rather, to areas of great importance,

327
00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:44,200
because any given university might take in a young freshman, you know, who might be brilliant

328
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:45,200
at the time.

329
00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:49,560
And if I was working aeronautics or hypersonics, they will have a sweet spot.

330
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:53,040
That university will have professors that are doing it.

331
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:58,400
What I think AIAA and, you know, similarly, IEEE and all other ones, you know, could could

332
00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:05,400
really look at the future and look at the needed technologies and the needed capabilities,

333
00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:10,240
which includes human beings, and steer that in the proper direction.

334
00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:14,600
People don't have to abide by what they say, but it's neutral, right?

335
00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:15,600
In theory.

336
00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:20,800
And so if they say the real, you made an interesting point.

337
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:26,760
The real problem, maybe heat transfer, okay, or maybe hotspots or something like that.

338
00:22:26,760 --> 00:22:27,760
Okay.

339
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:31,400
So, you know, aeronautics may never get too involved in that.

340
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:36,880
But a guy in, sorry, in hypersonics, but in aeronautics or materials engineering, they

341
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:38,520
make, oh, let's try to fix that.

342
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:40,360
You know, let's let's work together.

343
00:22:40,360 --> 00:22:49,040
I still think, Pam, and I think that's why NAS was so wonderful, that that multi technologies

344
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:50,280
is where the future is.

345
00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:55,360
Okay, not not a technology aeronautics or hypersonics and materials.

346
00:22:55,360 --> 00:23:01,840
It's where you get a young materials engineer talking with a, you know, scramjet hypersonic

347
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:07,440
guy, and also a fluid flow guy from, you know, I don't know what department that chemical

348
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:11,240
engineering let's say, okay, and you get them talking.

349
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:17,000
And I think we all know that while professors and very eminent professors are smart as heck,

350
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:21,200
the innovation comes from the individual and the individual and the younger, honestly,

351
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:25,000
God, you know what I'm working with five fifth graders right now.

352
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:28,240
Fifth graders on a problem is the problem.

353
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:35,760
How to extract a astronaut that gets trapped for whatever reason in a crater on the moon.

354
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:40,160
That's something that we're going to have to face probably a few years, you know, and

355
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:41,320
that's not an easy problem.

356
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:48,400
I got 50 kids who are in an academy, a steam Academy, not STEM, but steam, and they are

357
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:49,840
working on this problem.

358
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:54,640
And they are coming up with the most interesting solutions that are, you know, nothing that

359
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:56,360
NASA is thinking about.

360
00:23:56,360 --> 00:24:02,120
So the younger, I mean, there's a limit, obviously, but I'm telling you a fifth grader who's 10

361
00:24:02,120 --> 00:24:08,520
years old, roughly speaking, okay, can give you a lot of wild ideas that of course the

362
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,760
engineer has to say, well, wait a minute, that's not practical.

363
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:13,280
But these kids are so smart today.

364
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:17,880
I mean, as soon as I posed the problem, they wanted an hour off.

365
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:18,880
And I said, why do you want to know?

366
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:19,880
Oh, we have to go to Google.

367
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:24,240
We have to find out what's out there, you know, which I think is wonderful.

368
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:26,600
Let's figure out what's out there, you know.

369
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:30,520
So yeah, I think the societies could really do more.

370
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:35,640
They're kind of, I don't know, they're kind of like honorary things today, in a way.

371
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,000
I mean, a lot of them are honorary, you know.

372
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:43,760
Well they tend to ignore the small companies that are doing innovative stuff, which I don't

373
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:44,760
understand.

374
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:50,200
And unfortunately, a lot of the folks in Washington take their leads from what the professional

375
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:51,680
societies are doing.

376
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:52,680
Sure, sure.

377
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:57,560
I don't know if you remember, but I was a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts fellow.

378
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:02,520
And the reason I'm saying this is NIAC at that time was under the University Space Research

379
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:04,000
Association.

380
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:07,880
So it was at arm's length from actually NASA.

381
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:16,840
And the interesting thing about that is Dr. Bob Casanova built a virtual think tank and

382
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:24,320
he was able to access small businesses, national laboratories, universities around the country

383
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:28,680
and bring in new ideas in how to do things.

384
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:33,400
And I actually said, hey, let's see if we can use a neurogenesis algorithm to control

385
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:34,400
a smart structure.

386
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:37,880
And what kind of devices do we need to do that?

387
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:39,320
And they funded it.

388
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:42,520
And basically, okay, it's a flapping wing map.

389
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,080
Okay, fine.

390
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:46,080
That was my demonstration.

391
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:48,200
I said, so let's see if we can do it.

392
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:50,880
Well, in a year's sense, yeah, we can do it.

393
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:56,320
And all of that, basically, it's the foundations of what's become neuromorphic computing and

394
00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:00,960
intelligent mechatronics and all those things, because we're not going to be able to divide

395
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:02,920
our world into disciplines anymore.

396
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:03,920
Absolutely.

397
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:04,920
Absolutely.

398
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:07,840
It's going to be applications, not disciplines.

399
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:08,840
Yeah.

400
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:14,240
Well, you know, I'm now also getting involved in something very different.

401
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:21,720
And that is global responsibility for the future of our young people, which is beyond

402
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:22,720
technology.

403
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:23,720
And I'm not an expert.

404
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:24,720
I'm not a theologian.

405
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,120
I'm not a philosopher.

406
00:26:27,120 --> 00:26:28,720
But I wrote a book called God Light.

407
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:32,920
And I'd be happy to send it to you, Pam, if you don't have it.

408
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,000
And I have an Udemy course on God Light.

409
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:36,000
And it's not religious.

410
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:37,000
Okay.

411
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,440
So I mean, the title obviously will perk up people.

412
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:47,760
It's mostly a scientific explanation or whatever, a very basic for I mean, it'll be way under

413
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:48,760
your head.

414
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:50,880
But for most people, it's you know, it's just at the boundary.

415
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:54,920
I mean, if you want to talk about Big Bang, you know, that people go, what's a big bang?

416
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:56,520
And you and I know that.

417
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:01,920
But it allows people to think that, look, there's a lot we know about this world.

418
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:09,920
And it's kind of frightening in some sense, that we we are so limited in our ability to

419
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:14,880
be collaborative, to work together, to be beyond discipline.

420
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:20,120
I love that term that you said, I usually use multidisciplinary, but I think yours is

421
00:27:20,120 --> 00:27:23,000
better beyond discipline.

422
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,960
Because now, of course, the academics go crazy when you talk about that.

423
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,480
Okay, well, I got to close my course 22 or something.

424
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,360
MIT, you know, which is my alma mater.

425
00:27:34,360 --> 00:27:37,660
I went there, I've gone back for various reasons.

426
00:27:37,660 --> 00:27:40,000
And they have a lot of institutes now.

427
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,000
And they have as many institutes as courses.

428
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:46,680
When I went to MIT, I went back in the 50s, they had like 25 courses.

429
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,720
So I was chemical engineering, you know, nuclear engineering.

430
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:54,000
Now they still have the 25 courses, but they have as many institutes that are over the

431
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:55,000
top, you know,

432
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:56,000
Oh, absolutely.

433
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:57,000
And they've got a new institute.

434
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,580
Yeah, that, you know, the big schools have figured out, you know, that it's crud.

435
00:28:01,580 --> 00:28:06,560
Now it's hard to teach is what problem based, you know, you, you, you are capability based,

436
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:10,960
you say, how can we have a hypersonic plane or something like that, then you bring in

437
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:16,120
the professors from the various departments, you know, you work the kids that way, too.

438
00:28:16,120 --> 00:28:17,800
It's a big challenge for them.

439
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:22,800
Because you know, for 300 years, universities have pretty much done the same thing, including

440
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,760
the techies, you know, they taught disciplines.

441
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:28,200
Well, that's why I took the program I did.

442
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:29,200
Because,

443
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:30,200
Wonderful.

444
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:31,200
Yeah, you did.

445
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:32,200
You were a pioneer.

446
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:33,200
You truly were.

447
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:34,200
That's why I love to work with you.

448
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:39,360
I either she's going to get shot by the academicians or whatever, or she's going to really break

449
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:40,360
through.

450
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:41,720
Oh, the academics still hate me.

451
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:42,720
Don't worry.

452
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,520
Yeah, and they hate me for saying that too.

453
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:46,960
And then I go, look, I don't care.

454
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:48,200
You just got to think about it.

455
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:49,200
You know, you don't care.

456
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,520
I don't care about me, you know, but you got to think about the future here.

457
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:53,520
So we'll see.

458
00:28:53,520 --> 00:29:00,520
Join us next time on Sometimes It Takes a Rocket Scientist for part two.

459
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:05,200
Dr. Pamela Mench's interview with Dr. Bart Bargain.