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Jarret
Lafleur said Tech’s two biggest draws were
its aerospace engineering and music programs. |
Jarret Lafleur, a fourth-year aerospace engineering
major and a President’s Scholar, has been named
to USA Today’s 2006 College Academic All-Stars
first team.
Students applying for this distinction were asked to
write an essay about their “greatest intellectual
endeavor,” Lafleur said. He chose to submit his
conceptual design for Daedalon, a morphing wings spacecraft
for navigation on Mars.
“The concept was that you would enter [Mars’
atmosphere] as a blunt body arrow shell and that arrow
shell would transform into wings, which could change
shape as you got to a lower speed. You could presumably
morph your wings into a low-speed configuration as you
slow down,” he said.
Lafleur 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 a testing facility in New Mexico.
Currently, LaFleur is researching what type of propulsion
is needed to slow down a large spacecraft trying to
land on Mars. That’s a difficult problem because
the Martian atmosphere is very thin and doesn’t
slow down a spacecraft as much as it would on Earth.
“We 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’d
hit the ground at Mach 2 or 3,” he said. “My
part of the project is studying what type of propulsion
would be required, whether you could use propulsion
alone, or with a parachute.”
Originally from Rhode Island, Lafleur was attracted
to Tech’s top-flight aerospace engineering program.
But that wasn’t 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, “I
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.”
“Jarret is one of the rising stars in our aerospace
engineering program. He is extremely talented academically
and is a credit to our school,” said John Olds,
associate professor of aerospace engineering. “He
is very deserving of the honor.”
Lafleur plans to attend graduate school and pursue
his doctorate. He is not certain where graduate school
will take him but “Georgia Tech is certainly up
there in the running,” he said.
Concerning his career aspirations, Lafleur said, “I
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.”
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