I grew up in Hounslow United Kingdom, just outside of London, about 30 minutes outside of London.

You could sit on my grandfather's roof and actually watch planes as they came into land at Heathrow Airport.

They were so close, not only with a house shake, but you could actually read the tail numbers, the little

letters that are on the back of the aircraft, you could actually read them, that's how close they

were. I was fascinated by these aircraft. How the heck are these vehicles taking off and flying?

And that's really, that curiosity is what sparked my interest in understanding aviation.

Knowing that the way things are today don't have to be the way things are in the future.

We apply it to science, but that's also true for so many different realms of our life.

The fact that we have the power to implement the things that we learn in our daily lives,

we can change things. And I think that's really important.

This is NASA's curious universe.

Our universe is a wild and wonderful place. I'm Patty Boyd, and in this podcast, NASA is your tour guide. It's incredible to think about how much transportation has evolved in the past few centuries.

A journey that once took months with wagons or ships

now takes a few days in a car or train or a few hours on an airplane.

Our cities had to be smaller when everyone walked or rode horses.

Now with cars, buses, metro stations, and trains,

we can build bigger communities and explore our surroundings more easily.

But what about the next step in transportation?

In addition to our work exploring space,

NASA has an aeronautics division, which studies the science of flight.

These scientists and engineers are looking at ways to test, improve, and invent new ways to get around.

What if, in the future, instead of taking a taxi or subway train to get around short distances,

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