X-43A ENGINEER IS HELPING REACH FOR THE STARS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - As a girl, Laurie Marshall became fascinated with the moon and the stars. As an adult, she is helping to develop technology that will someday help travelers reach into space.

Marshall is NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's chief engineer for the X-43A, a tiny unmanned aircraft that hit record speeds of 6,600 mph in a brief flight on Nov. 16. The program was aimed at providing flight data on scramjets, a technology NASA and the Air Force officials believe could power high speed aircraft and spacecraft.

Marshall noted the flight even caught the attention of ``Tonight Show'' host Jay Leno, who joked about the possibility of 20-minute cross-country flights. Leno quipped that the flights would actually be 21 minutes - there would be a 1-minute layover in Atlanta.

``I would love to see that,'' Marshall said of future high-speed craft. ``It's doable. What this X-43A program is about is baby steps in a bigger, overall process. We're taking steps to something bigger.''

Marshall, who is closing out her duties on the program, writing reports and giving occasional interviews, said one of the primary messages she wants to get out is for students to persevere and to not be afraid to turn to others for help.

``I think as you go through school there will be hurdles,'' Marshall said. ``It's so important that you don't be discouraged. You have to keep working at it.''

Marshall grew up in Brentwood in a family that put a high value on education. Her mother is a federal district court judge; her father and brother are both entertainment attorneys.

Her interest in flying was spurred by her father.

``The year I was born, he got a pilot's license,'' Marshall said. ``We spent a lot of times in small planes.''

Marshall got her own pilot's license at age 17. While still in her teens, she made a flight from Van Nuys to Lansing, Mich., taking a cousin home.

Marshall traces her interest in space to an elementary school assignment where she had to watch the moon at various times of the night. It was a fun assignment, Marshall said, because it gave her an excuse to climb on top of the roof of her home.

``It was a shared activity,'' Marshall said. ``My dad had to get up with me and go up the ladder. I became fascinated with the stars.''

Good at math and science and wanting to work on planes and spacecraft, Marshall decided to go to the University of California, Davis, where she earned a bachelor of science degree, with a double major of aeronautical and mechanical engineering. She would later earn a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from California State University, Fresno.

While in college, she found out about a NASA internship program through a former clerk of her mother's. The program was for NASA's Ames Research Center in Northern California, which was responsible for Dryden at the time.

``I was interested in coming to Dryden because that's where all the planes were,'' Marshall said.

She spent the summer of 1992 at Dryden working in the Aerodynamics Branch. After graduating college, Marshall was hired full-time at Dryden in 1993.

Marshall has worked on a variety of projects at Dryden, including a study aimed at reducing drag by smoothing out the airflow over an airplane's wing and an analysis of space shuttle maneuvers to expand the spacecraft's aeronautical database.

She started working on the X-43A program in 1996, serving in a variety of positions, including as lead aerodynamics engineer for the first flight, the Dryden chief engineer for the Pegasus booster on the second flight, and then the chief engineer for the third and final flight.

Marshall does not know what project she will be involved with next. She would welcome an opportunity to work on a follow-on project to the X-43A, particularly if it involved the same team members.

It is the teamwork that X-43A officials first mentioned when talking about the success of the flights.

``I have never been more humbled by a project team than I have been with the X-43A team,'' said Dryden X-43A program manager Joel Sitz. ``People like Laurie Marshall have dedicated their heart and soul to this work over the last several years. It was an honor to work for her and them.''

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com

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(color) Laurie Marshall, NASA Dryden's chief engineer for the X-43A, says her father spurred her interest in flying.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News