From mach20 glider to humming bird drone Regina Dugan

you should be nice to nerds in fact I’d

go so far as to say if you don’t already

have a nerd in your life you should get

one I’m just saying

scientists and engineers change the

world

I’d like to tell you about a magical

place called DARPA where scientists and

engineers defy the impossible and refuse

to fear failure now these two ideas are

connected more than you may realize

because when you remove the fear of

failure impossible things suddenly

become possible if you want to know how

ask yourself this question what would

you attempt to do if you knew you could

not fail if you really ask yourself this

question you can’t help but feel

uncomfortable I feel a little

uncomfortable because when you ask it

you begin to understand how the fear of

failure constrains you how it keeps us

from attempting great things and life

gets dull amazing things stop happening

sure good things happen but amazing

things stop happening now I should be

clear I’m not encouraging failure

I’m discouraging fear of failure because

it’s not failure itself that constrains

us the path to truly new never been done

before things always has failure along

the way we’re tested and in part that

testing feels an appropriate part of

achieving something great

Clemenceau said life gets interesting

when we fail because it’s a sign that

we’ve surpassed ourselves in 1895 Lord

Kelvin declared that heavier-than-air

flying machines were impossible in

October of 1903 the prevailing opinion

of expert aerodynamicists was that maybe

in 10 million years we could build an

aircraft that would fly and two months

later on December 17th Orville Wright

powered the first airplane across a

beach in North Carolina the flight

lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet

that was 1903 one year later the next

declarations of impossibilities began

Ferdinand Fache a French army general

credited with having one of the most

original and subtle minds in the French

army said airplanes are interesting toys

but of no military value 40 years later

Aero experts coined the term transonic

they debated should it have 1 s or 2 you

see they were having trouble in this

flight regime and it wasn’t at all clear

that we could fly faster than the speed

of sound in 1947 there was no wind

tunnel data beyond Mach 0.85 and yet on

Tuesday October 14th 1947 Chuck Yeager

climbed into the cockpit of his bell x-1

and he flew towards an unknown

possibility and in so doing he became

the first pilot to fly faster the

speed of sound six of eight Atlas

Rockets blew up on the pad after 11

complete mission failures we got our

first images from space and on that

first flight we got more data than in

all YouTube missions combined it took a

lot of failures to get there since we

took to the sky we have wanted to fly

faster and farther and to do so we’ve

had to believe in impossible things and

we’ve had to refuse to fear failure

that’s still true today today we don’t

talk about flying transonic Li or even

supersonic Li we talk about flying

hypersonically not Mach 2 or Mach 3 Mach

20 at Mach 20 we can fly from New York

to Long Beach in 11 minutes and 20

seconds at that speed the surface of the

airfoil is the temperature of molten

steel 3500 degrees Fahrenheit like a

blast furnace we are essentially burning

the airfoil as we fly it and we are

flying it or trying to

darkus hypersonic test vehicle is the

fastest maneuvering aircraft ever built

it’s boosted to near space atop a

Minotaur 4 rocket now the Minotaur 4 has

too much impulse so we have to bleed it

off by flying the rocket at an 89 degree

angle of attack for portions of the

trajectory that’s an unnatural act for a

rocket the third stage has a camera we

call it rocket cam and it’s pointed at

the hypersonic glider this is the actual

rocket cam footage from flight 1 now to

conceal the shape we change the aspect

ratio a little bit but this is what it

looks like from the third stage of the

rocket looking at the unmanned glider as

it heads into the atmosphere back

towards Earth we’ve flown twice in the

first flight no aerodynamic control of

the vehicle but we collected more

hypersonic flight data than in 30 years

of ground-based testing combined and in

the second flight three minutes of fully

controlled aerodynamic flight at Mach 20

we must fly again because amazing never

been done before things require that you

fly you can’t learn to fly at Mach 20

unless you fly and while there’s no

substitute for speed manoeuvrability is

a very close second if a Mach 20 glider

takes 11 minutes and 20 seconds to get

from New York to Long Beach

a hummingbird would take well days you

see hummingbirds are not hypersonic but

they are maneuverable in fact the

hummingbird is the only bird that can

fly backwards it can fly up down

forwards backwards even upside down and

so if we wanted to fly in this room or

places where humans can’t go we’d need

an aircraft small enough and

maneuverable enough to do so this is a

hummingbird drone it can fly in all

directions even backwards it can hover

and rotate this prototype aircraft is

equipped with a video camera it weighs

less than one double a battery it does

not eat nectar in 2008 it flew for a

whopping 20 seconds a year later two

minutes then six eventually 11

many prototypes crashed many but there’s

no way to learn to fly like a

hummingbird unless you fly

it’s beautiful isn’t it Wow Matt is the

first-ever hummingbird pilot

failure is part of creating new and

amazing things we cannot both fear

failure and make amazing new things like

a robot with the stability of a dog on

rough terrain or maybe even ice a robot

that can run like a cheetah or climb

stairs like a human with the occasional

clumsiness of a human or perhaps

spider-man will one day be deco man a

gecko can support its entire body weight

with one toe one square millimeter of a

geckos foot pad has 14,000 hair like

structures called setae they are used to

help it grip to surfaces using

intermolecular forces today we can

manufacture structures that mimic the

hairs of a geckos foot the result a four

by four inch artificial nano gecko

adhesive can support a static load of

660 pounds that’s enough to stick six 42

inch plasma TVs to your wall no nails so

much for velcro right and it’s not just

passive structures its entire machines

this is a spider mite it’s one

millimetre long but it looks like

Godzilla next to these micro machines in

the world of Godzilla spider mites we

can make millions of mirrors each

one-fifth the diameter of a human hair

moving at hundreds of thousands of times

per second to make large screen displays

so that we can watch movies like

Godzilla in high-def and if we can build

machines at that scale

what about ISIL tower like trusses at

the micro scale today we are making

metal

that are lighter than styrofoam so light

they can sit atop a dandelion puffs and

be blown away with a wisp of air so

light that you can make a car that two

people can lift but so strong that it

has the crash worthiness of an SUV from

the smallest wisp of air to the powerful

forces of nature storms there are 44

lightning strikes per second around the

globe each lightning bolt heats the air

to 44 thousand degrees Fahrenheit hotter

than the surface of the Sun what if we

could use these electromagnetic pulses

as beacons beacons in a moving network

of powerful transmitters experiments

suggest that lightning could be the next

GPS electrical pulses form the thoughts

in our brains using a grid the size of

your thumb with 32 electrodes on the

surface of his brain Tim uses his

thoughts to control an advanced

prosthetic arm and his thoughts made him

reach for Katie this is the first time a

human has controlled a robot with

thought alone and it is the first time

that Tim has held Katie’s hand in seven

years that moment mattered to Tim and

Katie and this green goo may someday

matter to you this green goo is perhaps

the vaccine that could save your life

it was made in tobacco plants tobacco

plants can make millions of doses a

vaccine in weeks instead of months and

it might just be the first healthy use

of tobacco ever and if it seems

far-fetched that tobacco plants could

make people healthy what about game

that could solve problems that experts

can’t solve last September the gamers of

Foldit solve the three-dimensional

structure of the retro viral protease

that contributes to AIDS in rhesus

monkeys now understanding this structure

is very important for developing

treatments for 15 years

it was unsolved in the scientific

community the gamers have folded solved

it in 15 days now they were able to do

so by working together they were able to

work together because they’re connected

by the internet and others also

connected to the internet used it as an

instrument of democracy and together

they changed the fate of their nation

the Internet is home to two billion

people or 30% of the world’s population

it allows us to contribute and to be

heard as individuals it allows us to

amplify our voices and our power as a

group but it too had humble beginnings

in 1969 the internet was but a dream a

few sketches on a piece of paper and

then on October 29th the first

packet-switched message was sent from

UCLA to SR I the first two letters of

the word login that’s all that made it

through an L and an O and then a buffer

overflow crashed the system two letters

an L and an O now a worldwide force so

who are these scientists and engineers

at a magical place called DARPA they are

nerds and they are heroes among us they

challenge existing perspectives at the

edges of science and under the most

demanding of conditions they remind us

that we can change the world if we defy

the impossible and we refuse to fear

failure they remind us that we all have

nerd power sometimes we just forget you

see there was a time when you weren’t

afraid of failure when you were a great

artist or a great dancer and you could

sing you’re good at math you could build

things you were an astronaut an

adventurer Jacques Cousteau you could

jump higher run faster kick harder than

anyone you believed in impossible things

and you were fearless

you were totally and completely in touch

with your inner superhero scientists and

engineers can indeed change the world

so can you you were born - so go ahead

ask yourself what would you attempt to

do if you knew you could not fail now I

want to say this is not easy it’s hard

to hold on to this feeling really hard I

guess

in some way I sort of believe it’s

supposed to be hard

doubt and fear always creep in we think

someone else someone smarter than us

someone more capable someone with more

resources will solve that problem but

there isn’t anyone else there’s just you

and if we’re lucky in that moment

someone steps into that doubt and fear

takes a hand and says let me help you

believe Jason harley did that for me

Jason started at DARPA on March 18th

2010 he was with our transportation team

I saw Jason nearly every day

sometimes twice a day and more so than

most

he saw the highs and the lows the

celebrations and the

appointments and on one particularly

dark day for me

Jason sat down and he wrote an email he

was encouraging but firm and when he hit

Send he probably didn’t realize what a

difference it would make it mattered to

me in that moment and still today when I

doubt when I feel afraid when I need to

reconnect with that feeling I remember

his words they were so powerful

because that’s what being a superhero is

over there is only time enough to iron

your cape and back to the skies for you

and remember be nice to nerds

thank you

we’re gonna thank you I have a couple of

questions do ya

so that glider of yours the first one no

control it ended up in the Pacific I

think somewhere it what happened on that

second flight yeah it also went the

Pacific but this time under control yeah

no we didn’t fly it into the Pacific

right no there are multiple portions of

the trajectory that are demanding in

terms of really flying at that speed and

so in the second flight we were able to

get three minutes of fully aerodynamic

control of the vehicle before we lost it

I imagine you’re not planning to open up

to passenger service no it might be a

little warm do you picture what do you

picture that lighter being used for well

our responsibility is to develop the

technology for this how it’s ultimately

used will be determined by the military

now the purpose of the vehicle though

the purpose of the technology is to be

able to reach anywhere in the world

in less than 60 minutes and to carry a

payload of more than a few pounds yeah

like what’s the payload you carry

well I don’t think we ultimately know

what it will be right we got to fly it

first but not necessarily just a camera

yeah no not necessarily just a camera

it’s it’s amazing the bet that they’re

having better yeah I mean I’m curious

you know you started your beautiful

sequence on flight with with a wing kind

of trying to flap its wings and failing

horribly yeah they haven’t been that

many planes built since that flap away

yes yeah why why did we think that this

was the time to go via mimicry and

copier a hummingbird isn’t that a very

expensive solution for a small well

maneuverable flying object so I mean in

part we wondered if it was possible to

do it and you have to revisit these

questions over time the folks at

aerovironment tried 300 or more

different wing designs twelve different

forms of the avionics took them ten

full prototypes to get something that

would actually fly but there’s something

really interesting about a flying

machine that looks like something you’d

recognize so we often talk about stealth

as a means for avoiding any type of

sensing but when things look just

natural

you also don’t see them many stealth

it’s partly the the look it’s just

actually it’s sure

look at that cute hummingbird flying

into my headquarters that’s I think

that’s well as the or and looking at me

I’m sure some people here thinking you

know technology catches up so quick how

long is it before some crazed geek with

a little remote-control flies one

through a wouldn’t over the White House

I mean do you worry about the Pandora’s

Box issue here well look our singular

mission is the creation and prevention

of strategic surprise that’s what we do

it would be inconceivable for us to do

that work if we didn’t make people

excited and uncomfortable with the

things that we do at the same time it’s

just the nature of what we do now our

responsibility is to push that edge and

you know we have to be of course mindful

and responsible of how the technology is

developed and ultimately used but we

can’t simply close our eyes and pretend

that it isn’t advancing its advancing I

mean you’re clearly a really inspiring

leader and you persuade people to go to

these great feats of invention but at a

personal level in a way I can’t imagine

doing your job do you wake up in the

night sometimes just asking questions

about the possibly unintended

consequences of your team’s brilliance

sure I mean I think it would you

couldn’t be human if you didn’t ask

those questions you know how do you

answer well I don’t always have answers

for them right I think that we learn as

time goes on I mean my job is one of the

most exhilarating jobs you could have

I work with some of the most amazing

people and with that exhilaration comes

a really deep sense of responsibility

and so you have on the one hand this

tremendous lift of what’s possible right

and this tremendous seriousness of what

it means we’re gonna that was

jaw-dropping because they say thank you

so much