And air-cars are just the beginning.

Self-healing wings that flex and react like living organisms, versatile bombers that double as agile jet fighters, and swarms of tiny unmanned aircraft are just a few of the science-fiction-like possibilities that these next-generation technologies could make feasible in the decades ahead.

At the core of this impending quantum leap in aerospace technology are "smart" materials -- substances with uncanny properties, such as the ability to bend on command, "feel" pressure, and transform from liquid to solid when placed in a magnetic field.

"This is technology that most people aren't aware even exists," said Anna McGowan, program manager for the Morphing Project at LaRC, which develops these new technologies.

The task of the Morphing Project is to envision what cutting-edge aerospace design will be like 20 years from now and begin developing the technologies to make it happen.

For example, a personal air-car needs to be compact, yet able to fly at both very low and very high speeds.

"We know that to get a 'Jetsons' vehicle, you're probably going to need a wing that can undergo a radical configuration change," McGowan said. "The kind of wing you need at very low speed and the kind of wing you need at high speeds are completely different."

Some airplanes today can already reorient their wings, such as the Navy's F-14 Tomcat and the B-1 supersonic bomber. These planes use rigid wings mounted to large, heavy pivots in the plane's body.

In contrast, Morphing Project scientists envision a wing that will unfurl on command using "shape-memory" metal alloys or other novel "smart" materials. The material of the wing itself would bend to create the new shape.

Shape-memory alloys have the unusual property of snapping back to their original shape with great force when a certain amount of heat is applied. Any shape can be "trained" into the alloy as its original shape.

Among the exotic "smart" materials being developed by the Morphing Project, shape-memory alloys are relatively ordinary.

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