Mark Moore (engineer)

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Mark Moore is an American entrepreneur and electric aircraft engineer, and currently serves as co-founder and CEO of Whisper Aero. He previously co-founded and directed Engineering at Uber Elevate. In his 32 years at NASA, Moore led rapid concept-to-flight demonstrator teams that pioneered Distributed Electric Propulsion, including the GL-10 Greased Lightning, X-57, LEAPTech, as well as the Puffin, widely credited with being the first eVTOL aircraft concept.^[1][2]

Early Life and Education[edit]

Moore was born February 14, 1962. He earned a bachelor's degree with a major in aerospace engineering from the University of Cincinatti in 1988, a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from Stanford University in 1993, and a PhD (ABD) from Georgia Tech focused on advanced aeronautic vehicle concepts in 2009.^[2]

Career[edit]

NASA:[edit]

Mark Moore began his career at NASA’s Ames Research Center in 1982, before transitioning to Langley Research Center in 1999, where he specialized in advanced aircraft design.

NASA Puffin:

In 2009, Moore introduced the Puffin, a one-person, electrically powered eVTOL aircraft. Although the Puffin's full-scale prototype was never built, a subscale version flew successfully in February 2010, demonstrating the potential of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology. Moore designed the concept design vehicle.

On January 9, 2010, the first formal Puffin paper was unveiled at the VFS Specialists Conference on Aeromechanics. Additional Puffin papers were published on September 13 at the 10th AIAA ATIO Conference including the NASA Puffin Electric Tailsitter VTOL Concept and Puffin Redundant Electric Powertrain System.

Moore’s work gained substantial attention in the tech community, notably influencing Google co-founder Larry Page. Page, inspired by Moore’s papers, secretly funded the creation of two startups, Zee Aero and Kitty Hawk, aimed at developing eVTOL technology.^[3][4]

The Puffin has been widely cited as the first eVTOL concept, with first Puffin video which received 648,000 views in one week being credited with sparking the wider eVTOL movement.^[5]

Distributed Propulsion:[edit]

Moore was Principal Investigator and project lead for the distributed electric propulsion X-57 SCEPTOR powered lift and G-10 Greased Lightning VTOL sUAS flight demonstrators. Moore’s contributions included developing the advanced concept and technology suite, securing funding to develop and build the flight demonstrators, formation and selection of the project teams, and final decision-making authority and execution of the projects.

The GL-10 and X-57 teams were recognized by the NASA Langley Center Director with the Distinguished Service Team awards for successful project execution.

GL-10 Greased Lightning:[edit]

The GL-10 project was unique in that Moore was able to attract several million dollars of funding from non-NASA sources to develop this flight demonstrator, which resulted in multiple successful transition flights.^[6][7]

X-57:[edit]

The SCEPTOR X-57 project was the first manned X-plane in over 25 years with a budget of $43.5M. Moore also led and designed the quick-start risk reduction LEAPTech "Mad-max" mobile test rig truck demonstration that validated the full-scale Distributed Electric Propulsion technology suite.^[8][9]

Electric Aircraft Concepts:[edit]

Zip Aircraft:

Dos Samara:

Spiral Duct:

Hyper Efficiency Concept:

Uber Elevate:[edit]

In 2017, Moore transitioned from NASA to Uber, co-founding and joining as the Director of Engineering for the companies Elevate project, which aimed to develop a network of urban air taxis.^[10]

Uber Elevate, as outlined in the company’s October 2016 white paper, co-authored by Jeff Holden, Nikhil Goel, and Moore, presented a vision where people could use multimodal Uber trips.^[11]

The Uber Elevate white paper, as well as annual Elevate summits hosted from 2017-2019 helped develop the eVTOL and urban air mobility (UAM) markets into a larger aerospace sector pursued by dozens of OEMS.^[12]

In December 2020, Uber Elevate was acquired by Joby Aviation.^[13]

Whisper Aero:[edit]

In 2020, Moore founded Whisper Aero alongside co-founder and COO Ian Villa.

See also[edit]

• Distributed Propulsion
• NASA G-10 Greased Lighting
• NASA Puffin
• NASA X-57 Maxwell
• Whisper Aero

References[edit]

External links[edit]

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