AIAA Webinar: A Brief History of Modern Hypersonics, Or How Did We Get Here? 17 June 2021 12 p.m. - 1 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time) Online

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Featuring Special Guest Lecturer, Mark J. Lewis, AIAA Past President and Executive Director of NDIA’s Emerging Technologies Institute (ETI)

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The development of hypersonic systems is one of the Department of Defense’s top technology modernization priorities, with multiple programs across each of the military services and defense science agencies aimed at delivering practical high-speed systems at scale. Even at the basic research level, the United States has ramped up its efforts in hypersonic flight, engaging directly with universities on an unprecedented scale. Yet, just a few years ago, hypersonics was viewed by many in the defense leadership as a distant capability, with promises that often exceeded delivered performance; programs in the past tended to start and stop with a frustratingly cyclical regularity, negatively impacting industrial capacity and workforce preparation. Now the United States seems to be on a steady consistent course to develop and produce a range of hypersonic systems.

This talk will review developments in recent years that have taken hypersonics from the fringes of defense science and technology to front and center of the mainstream defense research and engineering. This presentation also will review some the key technical and programmatic developments that have led to the current status, including both successes and failures, as well as address the underlying question of why this time it’s different.

Speaker:
Mark J. Lewis
AIAA Past President and current Executive Director of NDIA’s Emerging Technologies Institute (ETI)

Mark J. Lewis is an AIAA Past President and the current Executive Director of NDIA’s Emerging Technologies Institute (ETI), a nonpartisan think tank focused on technologies that are critical to the future of national defense. Best known for his work in hypersonics, Lewis’s research has spanned the aerospace flight spectrum from the analysis of conventional jet engines to entry into planetary atmospheres. From 2004 to 2008, Lewis was the Chief Scientist of the U.S. Air Force, the principal scientific adviser to the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Air Force. As the longest-serving Chief Scientist in Air Force history, his primary areas of focus included hypersonics, space launch, energy, sustainment, advanced propulsion, basic research, and workforce development.