What will future airplanes look like? Exciting, sleek and beautiful, if the five winners of a recent NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) challenge are any indicator. Graduates and undergraduates were asked to design a four-seat, electrically-powered craft that “could carry at least 400 pounds of extra cargo, fly at least 575 miles during a single flight, cruise at a speed of at least 150 mph and be able to take off in less than 3,000 feet under normal conditions.” Current materials and motors were undoubtedly intended, since the airplanes had to be ready to go into service by 2020 and be competitive with currently-available “standard piston-engine airplanes that burn fossil fuel.” This is definitely a challenge, and the students not only met it, but exceeded expectations. Of twenty team entries, NASA evaluators chose five for final consideration. Jaiwon Shin, NASA’s associate administrator for aeronautics, extolled their virtues. “The research and critical thinking that went into each of these designs was …