The biggest challenge that engineers will face over the next 100 years is to maintain the integrity of their respective disciplines and the safety of the world and its inhabitants.  The adage “with more freedom comes more responsibility,” comes to mind when I picture the future of engineering.  The freedom is what all engineers strive to create.  The responsibility cannot be overlooked because the results can be devastating. 

 

Imagine purchasing a ticket on Virgin Galactic Airlines for $50,000; your flight will last approximately 2 hours and you will land in the same place you departed from.  It sounds expensive for such a short flight, but picture the view you have from 63 miles above the earth, where the sky is no longer blue – it is black.  The privatization of the space travel is a quickly developing industry.  Within the next 10 years, some people predict that the above scenario will be true.  Now, think back to less than a year ago when some of our nation’s smartest aeronautical engineers and scientists tragically overlooked a featherweight piece of foam, leading to the deaths of seven U.S. astronauts over Texas. 

 

Another engineering feat was being celebrated less than six months ago; the first cloning of an human embryo.  A Korean doctor did it nearly a dozen times, he claimed, as well as cloning a dog.  The door to curing many of the world’s diseases seemed to be opening until the doctor resigned a short time later due to mounting accusations that he fabricated all of that research.

 

How do we, as inhabitants of this planet or country or University, put faith in the engineered world around us if we have doubts about the integrity of its creators?  An engineer is called upon to present the facts and solutions to many of life’s challenges.   When personal incentive or misapplication becomes an issue in this process, the outcome can be dangerous. 

 

Wilbur Wright said in 1908, “I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years…Ever since, I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions.”  Heeding the advice of one of the world’s most famous engineers, I cannot predict what kind of technological advances will be made in the next 100 years.  It seems nearly every day brings news of some medical breakthrough, an unthinkable aeronautical accomplishment, or a new super-computer that can do 50 teraflops more than the previous record holder.  Fifteen years ago, telling someone to “google it,” would have landed you in the insane asylum, and today it is helping college students graduate all over the country.  On the other hand, 100 years after Henry Ford introduced the Model-T Ford to the American public, the entire world is frighteningly dependant on the same fuel the Model-T needed to run our own automobiles. 

 

To predict specific challenges that engineers will face over the next 100 years is a pointless exercise due to the changes happening every day.  However, it can be more than reasonable assumed that technology will continue to advance at a breakneck pace in all fields of engineering, giving the world the ability to communicate more freely, move more freely, and live healthier lives.  With the unparalleled levels of freedom we will experience, however, also must come unparalleled levels of responsibility.  Engineers must themselves evolve as they continue to evolve the world.  The responsibility that Henry Ford had to the American public to keep them safe is hardly comparable to responsibility that French doctors have to their fellow man when they replace a woman’s face with the face of another woman who just died. 

 

The major problem that engineers face today is ensuring that their respective disciplines remain honorable and trustworthy.  Being such a broad field, existing in all parts of the world, makes engineering an impossible industry to regulate and monitor.  Each man can only be responsible for himself.  If all engineers can pledge to do just that, however, the freedom that the world can experience is limitless.