IEEE Spectrum June, 2009 - 64

The International Space Station demonstrated that after the Cold War, indus{ The lasT word }
trialized nations could work together in
space without requiring the motivation
of fear or nationalism. That's important,
because fear and nationalism can't get us
net w ill
to Mars. It's too big an undertaking for
Hum a n e x p l o r a ti o n of the r ed pla
rs
any one country, and the commitment
insp ir e new gen er atio ns of eng inee
norberg
will have to persist despite changes in
+ + + by le a h h. ja mie son w ith john
world politics. It's an undertaking on
a scale that will require many of the
world's best minds.
T h i s p a s T a u T u m n , I met with all 1700 first-year engineering
Yet developed nations are seeing
students at Purdue University. I asked them what their gener- far too many of their best and brightation's greatest technological legacy might be. Repeatedly, they est shunning engineering as a career.
told me: sending people to Mars.
Countless panels and study groups have
I was surprised, but I shouldn't have been. Human achieve- lamented the problem and proposed
ment takes countless forms, and none has proved more rev- solutions. Common to all these solutions
olutionary than space exploration. It energizes engineering, is the conviction that engineering once
resuscitates research, and galvanizes new generations. After again needs to inspire-that we need to
all, fearless optimism and an accompanying willingness to harness the power of dreams with projdo what's hard are what set great engineers apart. As U.S. ects like a human mission to Mars.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, engineers "build
Here at Purdue, I get to see some of
not merely for the needs of men but for their dreams as well."
those dreams made real. Hundreds of
Ironically, it wasn't dreams but rather fear that triggered the our engineers now work in the aerorace to space. The October 1957 launch of Sputnik set in motion space industry, among them William H.
a wave of technological advancement
Gerstenmaier, who directs
unsurpassed in history, the ripples of
NASA's human exploration
which are still being felt today. For
program. And 22 Purdue
more than a decade, policy-makers
g r adu ates have b e come
and the public genuinely believed
astronauts, including Neil
that the future depended on engiArmstrong, the first man
neers and scientists and that educato walk on the moon, and
tion would have to inspire young peoEugene Cernan, the last-
or as he would say, "the
ple to pursue those careers.
In the United States, Congress
most recent."
provided loans for college students
Cernan, who earned a
and funded improvements in science,
bachelor's degree in elecmathematics, and foreign-language
t r ical eng ineer ing f rom
instruction at elementary and sec- moon shot: President Kennedy's
Purdue in 1956, finds my stuondary schools. In Europe, NATO set 1961 speech launching the Apollo
dents' vision of reaching for
up a science committee, which pro- program helped set in motion a wave
the Red Planet not at all fartechnological advancement.
posed to launch "a satellite for peace- of
fetched. "As long as we give
PHOTO: NASA
ful outer space research...and circling
them the tools, as long as we
the earth by 1960."
give them the education and the inspiGlorious things came out of that era. On 25 May 1961, ration, there's no question in my mind
President John F. Kennedy delivered his legendary man-on-the- that they will take us to Mars," he says.
moon speech, and eight years later, Apollo 11 made good on it. "Where it's going to lead, who knows? But
It was one of the United States' finest hours, and for a time, at I can tell you this with absolute certainty:
least, virtually anything seemed possible. And so the impact It's going to happen."
o
continued to reverberate through the rest of the 20th century
and on into this one, albeit as an increasingly weakened echo. LeaH H. JaMIeSON is the John a.
Nevertheless, innovation and technology directly or indi- edwardson Dean of engineering at Purdue
rectly inspired by the space race still shape the way we live University, in West Lafayette, Ind. She
and work. And I'm not talking about Tang or the Space Pen: served as president of Ieee in 2007. JOHN
Satellite communications, satellite navigation, photovoltaics, NORBeRG, a senior writer at Purdue, is
fault-tolerant computing, and countless specialty materials and author of Wings of Their Dreams: Purdue
biomedical sensors all came out of the space program.
in Flight (Purdue University Press, 2003).

the mars challenge

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum June, 2009