U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, left, and Joe Sacco, NASA’s acting director of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC), tour the largest wind tunnel in the world on Tuesday, Mar. 8, 2022. The unique facility is located at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and operated by the U.S. Air Force. The tunnel’s test section measures 80 by 120 feet, and its airflow is driven by six enormous fans, each 40 feet in diameter. One fan’s wooden blades are visible here in the background.
During the visit to Ames, Secretary Kerry learned about ways the NFAC can support industry as they develop new wind turbine technologies and other climate-related innovations.
The NASA Earth Exchange, a big-data collaborative project that uses the agency’s supercomputers at Ames, was also discussed, along with the center’s expertise in using aircraft – both crewed and uncrewed – to study and monitor the climate with Earth-observation instruments, many built at Ames or with Silicon Valley industry partners.