Research aims for 'game-changing' technologies.

• Author: Jean, Grace
• Position: Air Force

* AIR FORCE RESEARCH IS FOCUSED ON a multitude of high technology quests, including a drive to perfect a more economical alternative to fossil fuels.

Across the hoard, it is looking for ways to get more return for its investments in science and technology. The goal is to develop technologies that are more attuned to the service's mission and to improve its next generation of weapon systems, officials say.

"I believe it's in the interest of America to have the Air Force begin again to drive the technology of America," says Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.

The officer who oversees science and technology efforts, Maj. Gen. Ted Bowlds, says the Air Force will be seeking to strike a balance between near-term needs and long-term goals.

"With the budget we've got, we've got to go out and build partnerships. We work very hard to do that," says Bowlds, who is the commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

"You don't want to get your research too near-focused, because then, 10 years from now, when you're looking for that next nanotechnology, it's not going to be there," he says.

Much of the near-term research is being driven by the war on terrorism. "The enemy tends to be very dynamic, very agile, and problems present themselves for which you need a quick solution," says Bowlds.

The lab has an annual budget of $1.5 billion, which is supplemented by $1.8 billion through customer-funded research and development efforts. Funding generally is divided into three major areas: aviation, space and information technologies.

Aviation projects receive half the budget while the rest is spread between space and cyber-technologies, says Bowlds.

Among the current priorities are hypersonic systems. The lab recently brought back online an old wind tunnel that had been in storage for 10 years.

"We spent a fair amount of money refurbishing it and putting in a new data system so we could resume hypersonic testing into Mach 2, Mach 3 types of speed ranges," says Bowlds.

The lab is investing in a number of hypersonic technologies, including airframes and engine components for high-speed turbines, ramjets, scramjets and rockets.

In the space domain, there has been a push to improve situational awareness, so that the commander on the field will understand how the space environment is behaving. The goal is to be able to detect new launches, to track systems and objects in space, and to understand the health of assets in space.

In the field of information technology, scientists are...