Retired general speaks of "lessons learned," AEDC, at AAPS event

  • Published
  • By Shawn Jacobs
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Dickman treated luncheon guests to some of the wisdom he has gained during his distinguished career.

General Dickman, the executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), spoke to the Arnold Association of Professional Societies (AAPS) Sept. 22 at the Arnold Lakeside Center regarding "Lessons from an Air Force National Security Space Career: From Particle Physics to Space Launch and Satellite Ops."

AIAA is a professional membership technical society with more than 35,000 members in 79 countries.

Prior to retiring from the Air Force in 2000, General Dickman was the director of the Corporate Operations Office, and senior military officer for the National Reconnaissance Office in Washington, D.C.

General Dickman took some time afterward to share some of his insight and his impressions of Arnold Engineering Development Center with High Mach.

HM: As executive director of the AIAA what are your main responsibilities and concerns?

General Dickman: My main responsibilities are to provide service to our members. We've got members all over the world; about one-sixth of our members are international. Providing a forum for technical discussions is really what we're about.

My main concern is work force. It's "How do we replenish the aerospace work force?"

Many of us came in during the Apollo era or early shuttle era or another generation of airplanes. How do we bring the technical people through college, get them interested enough to be in college, enough in technical disciplines and then get into the work force and stay in the work force? I'm not the Lone Ranger; Boeing and Lockheed and every other aerospace company is working that same problem.

HM: That dovetails very well with the initiatives of AEDC's Commander, Col. Michael Panarisi, who's working locally to interest students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

General Dickman: I understand he brings local school teachers onto base; he's done that a couple times. That is a great initiative.

HM: Looking at your professional biography, I would imagine AEDC and you have crossed paths on some level on a few occasions, especially in your role as the Deputy for Military Space in the office of the Undersecretary of the Air Force. If so, in what way and on what types of projects or programs?

General Dickman: Not as much directly as you might expect because I wasn't on the air side I was on the space side, and so when I was in engine programs, and I was down here visiting the DECADE facility before it was shut down. But I certainly interacted with AEDC at arm's length because the kind of testing that is done here is so absolutely critical to so many of our weapons systems that making sure that our program managers understood what AEDC could do for them and how to be a good customer of AEDC was part of what I was trying to encourage.

HM: What do think of AEDC's reputation?

General Dickman: I think you have a great reputation. I think people were more familiar with AEDC when aerodynamic testing was such a big thing, in the 1950s and 60s and into the 70s. I think part of what AEDC needs to be doing now is make people aware of how good you really are. People that know the community know you're world class, but so many program managers don't realize the resource that's here that they could be using. It's the same with commercial companies; commercial aviation companies could be using it.

HM: How important is the role that AEDC has played over the years in supporting the space program?

General Dickman: Over the years, very important. The test facilities for the rocket motors and the missiles, in particular, have been absolutely critical as we understand aging of our ballistic missiles. I think the challenge for AEDC in space is going to be to look 20 years into the future and say, "What are the test capabilities that are going to be needed that today we can't identify?" But they're going to be needed sometime and to be ahead of that curve.

HM: What's your take on hypersonic research in supporting space-based assets?

General Dickman: I think our [AIAA] president, former chief scientist at the Air Force, is fond of saying, "Hypersonics is the future of space transportation and it always will be." What we need to do is figure out how to make it not "it always will be," but "it is." Hypersonic research is hard. Hypersonic systems will be very difficult, but Air Force Space Command has committed that its next generation space launch system is going to be a hypersonic first stage. So, where does AEDC fit into that? What kind of testing can be done? What things are going to need to be validated - not what we've done in the past - but what's going to be needed to satisfy that particular problem? And then make sure the resources are there to help solve it.

HM: We recently had an AIAA-hosted technical excellence event on base that featured Sam Dougherty as the guest speaker. He is a technical fellow with Jacobs Engineering, Science and Technical Services (ESTS) Group contract at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. In a short interview held at the presentation, he said the future for AEDC and other test centers is in remote and robotic testing capabilities done from space. What is your take on this and is there any move in this direction from either the Department of Defense (DoD), NASA or from industry?

General Dickman: I think the future for AEDC and your strength is in system level problem solving on things that have to do with flow, whether it's flow of a turbine engine or flow over an aerodynamic surface or flow out of a rocket engine. It's a unique skill within the government and even within NASA in many respects, you guys are world class. I think growing that skill, rather than looking for something completely different is probably where I would start.

HM: What are your thoughts about the recent direction NASA is taking in regard to
some changing mission priorities?

General Dickman: It's a very big question and I'm going to give you a pretty small answer. I think the commitment of NASA to do more research and basic development is a good thing. I think we need to be doing far more of that if we're going to be the premier space-faring nation in 2040 ─ not in 2020, but in 2040. We need to do basic research. We need to do the kind of things that this center is capable of, but not their traditional development tests that it's done. I'm encouraged that NASA is going to do more funding in that regard.

HM: Is there anything else you'd like to mention?

General Dickman: I'm glad to be here. It's a great place. As I said in my talk, I envy you guys - where you live, where you work, what you do and the risk/reward structure that says, "Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you fail, but you're in the fray; you're doing good work."