Existing comment:
Site of U.S. Experimental Model Basin 1898-1955 Founded by Rear Admiral David Watson Taylor who was the Director until 1914.
Here the Navy laid the foundations for research in ship and aircraft design with the establishment of a 470 foot towing tank in 1898 and an 8-by 8-foot closed circuit wind tunnel in 1914, both of which were first in the United States. Structural research on naval ships was begun in 1922. To those pioneers in naval science, whose work is being continued and extended at the David Taylor Model Basin built in 1939, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics which became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958, this plaque is dedicated. |