Galveston residents to be paid to volunteer for NASA sound test

GALVESTON, Texas (KTRK) –

NASA has a new technology that it says will put an end to these hyper-powerful sound booms. But first, they need Galveston volunteers to help them test it.

NASA scientists at the Langley Research Center in Virginia and the Armstrong Flight Research Center in California plan to conduct a series of data collection flights over Galveston for about two weeks in November.

Letters are being sent to 500 Galveston residents this week to explain what will happen. The people who receive the letters will receive 2 dollars just for considering the study.

According to a spokeswoman for Logical Innovations, a partner of a space agency, anyone who decides to help NASA will be paid $ 25 a week.

These volunteers will need to connect to a website to let NASA know what they heard, if any, and how they felt about the sound.

At the same time, audio sensors placed around the city will provide researchers with a measure of the scientific truth about loudness.

"We will never know exactly what everyone has heard, we will not have a noise monitor on their shoulder inside their house, but we would at least have an estimate of how much noise we have. "The magnitude of the noise levels actually heard," said Alexandra Loubeau, NASA's team, is leading research on the community response to the boom in Langley.

The tests should start in early November.