MSE’s MARIAH Wind project offers economic hope for all of Montana

An Ultra High Pressure Test Facility at MSE’s operation in Butte has helped lay the groundwork for a prototype wind tunnel project.

Out past the airport here, in a clump of tan buildings in an industrial park, engineers and others are working on a project they say could someday alter the economic course of Butte, Great Falls and a good spread of Montana.

By JAMES E. LARCOMBE
Tribune Business Editor

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040801/localnews/955932.html

The project involves a prototype wind tunnel that will be used to test components for hypersonic flight, or flying at more than five times the speed of sound.

MSE Technology Applications Inc., a for-profit company, is building the tunnel. It’s getting most of the funding for the prototype under a contract with the Army.

The Butte company has teamed with Princeton University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico on the high-tech wind tunnel.

The Army contract is for $50 million over five years. But the potential impact could go well beyond that.

Developing the prototype in Butte could give them a big leg up on landing a project to develop a full-scale hypersonic wind tunnel, the folks at MSE say. Such a project could require a secure, military installation.

"Malmstrom (Air Force Base) sort of fits the bill there," Mayor Randy Gray notes. The folks in Butte agree.

Gray and others interested in local economic development have met with officials from MSE and Butte about working together on a long-term plan for development of the large-scale wind tunnel and other military and civilian projects that could spring from its potential development.

Plenty of uncertainty remains, and competition for the national project will be intense, Gray and others say.

"It’s a long way from here to there," Gray said. "But this one is worth working on — not just for Great Falls and Butte, but for the whole state."

How big of a project are they talking about?

A supersonic wind tunnel project — and a mass of related research and engineering work and other spin-off activity at the Arnold Engineering Development Center — created 4,000 jobs and reshaped the economy of Tullahoma, Tenn.

"We’ve been there and have seen what happened in terms of economic development," said Jeff Ruffner, senior vice president and general manager of MSE Technology Applications. "We believe the same thing can happen in Montana if we develop an aerospace industry."

The first steps of that development are taking place in Butte. Aerospace projects account for about 20 percent of the work taking place at MSE Technology Applications, which has about 200 employees.

MSE is located in the Mike Mansfield Advanced Technology Center. The company got its start as a federal Department of Energy facility doing research work with magnetohydrodynamics. MSE initially was short for Mountain States Energy. In recent years that name has been scrapped in favor of just MSE.

Research has expanded since the late 1980s, with testing under way in up to 35 areas.

"Those range from aerospace to mine clean-up," said Don Peoples, the president and CEO of MSE Inc. and a longtime leader in Butte economic development initiatives.

Call it Mariah

The biggest aerospace project involves MARIAH, which stands for Magnetohydrodynamic Accelerated Research Into Advanced Hypersonics. Hypersonics involve speeds at five to 12 times greater than supersonics, which refer to speed beyond the pace of sound.

"Hypersonics is considered to be the next revolution in aerospace," said Dave Micheletti, vice president and senior manager of the aerospace division at MSE Technology Applications.

In general, both military and civilian programs are looking for ways to develop hypersonic flight systems, which would use oxygen in the air as part of the propulsion system rather than having to carry heavy tanks of liquid oxygen. Such "air-breathing" technology could be used in missiles and long-range aircraft as well as in space launch vehicles used by the military or NASA.

At the moment, no wind tunnel in the world can test aircraft or components at hypersonic speeds. At MSE, the plan is develop a prototype wind tunnel to test such technology.

Goal ‘ambitious’

The Butte facility, working with researchers at Princeton and the national laboratories, has a five-year, $50-million contract with the Army to build the prototype. Completing the task by 2009 "is going to be a very ambitious undertaking," Micheletti said.

While each research partner is handling a component of the prototype, MSE is focusing on developing special nozzles for the tunnel that can survive air pressure of up to 300,000 pounds per square inch. With its Ultra High Pressure Test Facility — an unassuming collection of steel, cylinders and pipes — MSE has created 185,000 pounds of pressure, which it says is a world record.

The prototype version of the hypersonic wind tunnel will be an expanded version of the existing high-pressure test facility. The first two years of the Army project will focus on developing the needed technology. The final three years will involve designing and developing the prototype tunnel.

Technologically and financially, the project will be a challenge

"Hopefully," said Peoples, "if we meet the technology challenges the money will be there."

Money’s on the way

So far, so good on the money front. MSE is getting the Army contract money, which must be approved by Congress each year, in chunks. The project drew $12 million for 2004 and received approval last week for another $10.5 million for work in 2005.

"The support in Congress appears to very strong for the program," said Micheletti, an engineer who spent eight years at Malmstrom before joining MSE.

In the 2005 defense appropriation, the MARIAH project received more than twice as much money as any other Montana project. The state’s total 2005 appropriation was about $68.5 million.

Montana U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns said he’s impressed with the wind tunnel’s potential.

"I’m looking for big things in the next two years as far as the wind tunnel is concerned," Burns said during a visit to Great Falls last week. He said landing a full-scale tunnel project for Montana is not just economic pie-in-the-sky talk.

"I think it’s realistic," he said, noting, as others have, that the competition will be stiff.

Promoting Montana

David Gibson, the state’s chief business officer, has also been following the MARIAH project. Gibson has joined with the MSE folks, private industry leaders and officials from Montana State University and the University of Montana to form the Montana Aerospace Development Association. The group mission is to promote projects like the wind tunnel.

While excited about the possibility of a full-scale tunnel at Malmstrom or elsewhere in the state, Gibson is cautious in assessing the project’s long-term outlook. Congressional funding and even the potential for a new occupant of the White House could impact the MARIAH project and the prospects for developing a full-scale tunnel.

"MSE is doing a great deal of work and has been very successful in the first phase of this," he said, "but the big nut is the full-scale wind tunnel. This one’s more real than a lot of projects out there but there are so many variables."

Timetable uncertain

A timeframe for a decision on a full-scale tunnel is hard to sketch out, given the need to prove the technology and other uncertainties. Micheletti says work on a tunnel where aircraft or major components could be tested could happen as the prototype work is being finished in the next four years.

"We’ve already started to see interest on the part of the aerospace industry on this (prototype) wind tunnel," said Micheletti. "The interest and motivation in designing and developing hypersonic flight vehicles appears nationally to be gaining a lot of momentum."

Peoples said the aerospace association will outline the wind tunnel possibilities for the Montana Legislature in its 2005 session and take other steps to build support for aerospace projects.

"This is going to take a statewide effort," Peoples said. "If there is going to be hundreds of millions spent in hypersonics, the whole state will benefit. There isn’t any reason we shouldn’t be talking something like this for Montana."

Larcombe can be reached at [email protected], at (406) 791-1463 or (800) 438-6600.