{"73163":{"#nid":"73163","#data":{"type":"news","title":"USA Today Names Tech Senior Academic All-Star","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJarret Lafleur, a fourth-year aerospace engineering major and a President\u0027s Scholar, was named to USA Today\u0027s 2006 College Academic All-Stars first team.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EStudents applying for this distinction were asked to write an essay about their \u0022greatest intellectual endeavor,\u0022 said Lafleur. He chose to submit his conceptual design for Daedalon, a morphing wings spacecraft for navigation on Mars.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The concept was that you would enter (Mars\u0027 atmosphere) as a blunt body aeroshell and that aeroshell would transform into wings, which could change shape as you got to a lower speed. You could morph your wings into a low-speed configuration as you slow down,\u0022 he said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ELafleur worked on the project for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts in 2003-04. As a co-op student, he has worked with the Johnson Space Center for three semesters, spending two semesters in Houston working on mission operations and design for an orbital space plane, and one at the White Sands, N.M., testing facility.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ECurrently, Lafleur is researching what type of propulsion is needed to slow down a large spacecraft trying to land on Mars. That\u0027s a difficult problem because the Martian atmosphere is very thin and doesn\u0027t slow down a spacecraft as much as it would on Earth.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We were finding that if you have this 100 ton payload entering the atmosphere and just let it fall, without any propulsion to help slow it down, you\u0027d hit the ground at Mach 2 or 3 ,\u0022 he said. \u0022My part of the project is studying what type of propulsion would be required, whether you could use propulsion alone, or with a parachute.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn 2005, Lafleur received a scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. Founded in 1984 by the six surviving astronauts of Mercury 7 and the widow of the seventh, the foundation says on its Web site that scholarships are awarded to \u0022college students who exhibit motivation, imagination and exceptional performance in the science or engineering field of their major.\u0022 \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOriginally from Rhode Island, Lafleur was attracted to Tech\u0027s top-flight aerospace engineering program. But that wasn\u0027t all. Lafleur has played flute and piccolo for the marching, concert and symphonic bands, the flute choir and the chamber winds ensemble. About his decision to attend Tech, he said, \u0022I knew I could keep up with music while I was here and I could get the strong aerospace background that I wanted. Those were probably the biggest draws.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Jarret is one of the rising stars in our aerospace engineering  program. He is extremely talented academically and is a credit to our school,\u0022 said John Olds, associate professor of aerospace engineering. \u0022He is very deserving of the honor.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ELafleur plans to attend graduate school and pursue his doctorate. He is not certain where graduate school will take him but \u0022Georgia Tech is certainly up there in the running,\u0022 he said. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EConcerning his career aspirations, Lafleur said, \u0022I certainly want to do space types of engineering. And I prefer to focus on human space flight and all the new exploration initiatives such as going to the moon and Mars.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Jarret Lafleur, a fourth-year aerospace engineering major and a President\u0027s Scholar, was named to USA Today\u0027s 2006 College Academic All-Stars first team.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Aerospace engineering student wins honors"}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2006-03-15 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:10:42","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2006-03-15T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2006-03-15T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"73164":{"id":"73164","type":"image","title":"Jarret Lafleur","body":null,"created":"1449177979","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:26:19","changed":"1475894671","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:31"}},"media_ids":["73164"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}