Leaps of imagination - Leaps of imagination

Frontiers July 2016 Issue

95 WHAT WILL THE NEXT 100 YEARS BRING? BOEING’S CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER LOOKS AHEAD—WAY AHEAD Leaps of imagination we will certainly have a presence.” And it’s a good bet that Boeing will help make it happen—and so much more, according to Tracy. Proof is in the photographs on Tracy’s office walls and in the models on his desk and shelf, innovative and industry-changing products from Boeing and its heritage companies that have left huge footprints in aerospace during the company’s first 100 years: the hypersonic X-15 research vehicle, which set speed and altitude records that still stand today, and which rocketed its pilots to the edge of space to gather data critical for the U.S. manned space program that followed; a night launch of one of the space shuttles, a reusable space plane that was boosted story by james wallace photography by bob ferguson A glimpse of the future can be seen just outside the office of John Tracy at Boeing’s corporte headquarters in Chicago. Four paintings by Boeing artists depict human space colonies on the moon and Mars. Next to the paintings is a placard with these words of explanation: “Though many of these far-reaching ideas have yet to materialize, the renderings represent the imaginative scope that has made space exploration possible.” Tracy, who retires this month after 10 years as chief technology officer and a Boeing career that spanned more than 35 years, has little doubt such colonies will come to pass, possibly during the company’s second century, which begins July 15. After all, it didn’t take all that long to go from flying in crude airplanes to walking on the moon during Boeing’s first century. That 100-year legacy of Boeing innovation—of daring to dream big, of having the courage and confidence to take risks, of doing what many thought impossible—began just a few years 2011 747-8 Intercontinental commercial transport The 747-8 Intercontinental provides 467 seats in a three-class configuration. 2012 Space Launch System Boeing begins initial design of the core stage propulsion system and production line, as well as avionics, for NASA’s massive, new heavy-lift launch vehicle that will carry crew and cargo beyond Earth. after the Wright brothers made history’s first powered manned flight in 1903 over the wind-swept sand dunes of Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. The length of that flight, 120 feet (36.6 meters), would have fit inside the main cabin of the first 747, with plenty of room to spare. But those 12 seconds changed the world forever. It would take only 66 years until astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were bounding across the Sea of Tranquility in July 1969. And Boeing’s next 100 years, what will they bring? What new frontiers will be crossed? When will humans leave footprints across the Martian landscape? What leaps of imagination will give wing to aerospace advances that change the world—and possibly above and far beyond it? “Many people say we will get to Mars by 2030 or 2040. And I absolutely believe that,” Tracy said during a discussion about Boeing’s past and its future, and the leaps of imagination and march of innovation that will connect the two. “I don’t think we will have colonies on Mars by then, but “Many people say we will get to Mars by 2030 or 2040. And I absolutely believe that.”


Frontiers July 2016 Issue
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