Today in History – December 8, 1993 – First functional GPS (Global Positioning System) was developed. The technology initially developed for military use eventually made its way into our daily lives- most notably in cars and cell phones. Using information from a number of satellites orbiting the Earth (originally with 24, now a total of 30), a GPS receiver can pinpoint your location in real time with the help of atomic clocks, which makes this accurate to one billionth of a second. The GPS manufacturing and development industry has launched into a multi-billion dollar industry with its vast number of practical applications- from locating lost ships at sea to studying earthquakes by monitoring plate tectonics like the people at SCIGN (Southern California Integrated GPS Network). Soon enough, they will be available in credit card sizes, making it even more convenient to carry one around.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on GPS and geomatics. For related curricula, visit the Information Technology Education, Computer Engineering Education, Electrical Engineering Education , Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Education disciplinary communities.

Also on this date in 2004- After popularizing the PC in the ’80s, IBM sells its PC business to a Chinese company. The computer industry giant decided to let go of its retail computer division in order to concentrate on software development and providing services at a larger scale.

Today in History – January 11, 1954 – Although radio weather broadcasts have been around since 1922, it was not until 1953 that BBC executives, gathered for a luncheon, introduced the idea of presenting a weather forecast on television. These BBC executives searched the Met Office and chose the 32-year-old George Cowling, a former Royal Air Force meteorologist, to take on this new idea. Cowling delivered the first televised weather forecast on January 11th, 1954 at 7:55 PM from BBC’s Lime Grove Studios. The broadcast lasted for only five minutes and cost 50 pounds to deliver, but it started a weather forecasting revolution. Today, the BBC’s Weather Center produces 100 forecasts each weekday, now with the help of modern computer, lighting, sound, and camera technology. This equipment was not available to Cowling, who relied on an easel to deliver his first broadcast.

Two months later RCA produced the first color television sets. See Lisa Huettel’s March 25 blog on this event.

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the color television. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History – October 23-24 – TRON Legacy Exhibit at the National Science & Engineering Festival.

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has teamed up with Walt Disney Studios to co-create an interactive exhibit in Tent 102 at the USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo, which will take place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 23 and 24 from 10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. each day.  The hands-on experience blends themes from the upcoming major motion picture TRON: Legacy with the NAE’s Grand Challenges for Engineering.

Exhibit-goers will be transported into the digital world of TRON: Legacy and examine where movie fantasy and reality intersect.  Visitors can try 3-D scanning and see how it’s bringing the real and virtual worlds closer together.  They’ll get a chance to do brain surgery on a computer-generated replica of a real brain, and experience a trip into the TRON: Legacy digital grid through an incredible 3-D light painting activity created especially for this exhibit. The NAE worked with Disney Imagineering research scientist Lanny Smoot (upper right photo) to develop the interactive demo.

TRON: Legacy is the stand-alone sequel to the 1982 motion picture TRON.  Both star Jeff Bridges as software engineer and video game developer Kevin Flynn, who was digitized by a laser and transported into a world of computer games in the original film.  In TRON: Legacy, Flynn’s son Sam finds himself in the digital realm where his father has lived for the past two decades.  The film, in theaters nationwide on Dec. 17, 2010, involved cutting-edge movie technologies, including one that allows Bridges to act as his younger self.

“Engineering is woven into the very fabric of TRON: Legacy. The story is rich with themes about technology and its evolving relationship with humanity in an increasingly digital world,” said co-producer Justin Springer.  “The line between science and art is blurring more than ever.  And some of the most talented artists in modern film making are engineers, mathematicians, architects, and computer programmers.”

An international committee of some of today’s most accomplished engineers and scientists determined the NAE’s Grand Challenges for Engineering.  They identified 14 potentially “game changing” goals for helping people and the planet thrive in the 21^st century that include enhancing virtual reality; engineering better medicines; advancing personalized learning; engineering the tools of scientific discovery; and reverse engineering the brain.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival and the NAE Grand Challenges. For related educational resources, visit the engineering education and the computer graphics & visualization disciplinary communities.

Also on this date on October 23, 1819, the first boat passed through the Erie Canal. On October 24, 1861 the transcontinental telegraph line was completed.

Today in History – April 22, 1970 – First Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, says that the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. He wanted President Kennedy to give visibility to pollution and the environmental degradation that was appearing throughout the country, but was going unnoticed by the political establishment. The anti-Vietnam War demonstrations called “teach-ins” were popular on college campuses and he decided to organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment, tapping into both the energy of the student anti-war movement and the environmental cause. A Sunday, November 30, 1969, New York Times article by Gladwin Hill forecast that this was going to be a massive event:

“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’ …

Senator Gaylord Nelson explains that Earth Day worked “because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated.”

Today with global warming and another energy crises, sustainability is a top international concern and an estimated 1 billion people will do something to observe the anniversary of the first Earth Day. People will participate in marches and protests, family and community activities, clean-up days, tree-planting events, saving water, saving energy, nature walks, and sustainability events.  A coalition of U.S. government agencies provides more on the history of Earth Day, environmental progress and Earth Day activities.

I am pleased to see a dramatic change in government action to aggressively workon climate and environmental issues. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson challenges all Americans to “begin building the green economy“, Department of Energy’s Steven Chu tackling global warming, and .

Expressions like “Green is the new black”, “Green is the new red, white and blue” and “green commerce”, such as that highlighted in ABC’s “Green Gadgets for Earth Day” news, demonstrate that green design is big business today. Alas some of these efforts are really “green washing” and are more effective at ringing up sales than in helping the environment. We should encourage life cycle analysis thinking with our students to seriously look at the long term environmental impact of new products, energy options and strategies.

The Engineering Pathway has a number of resources on green design, manufacturing and sustainability as well as on environmental ethics. For more educational resources, see our agricultural engineering education, environmental engineering education and chemical engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines, including interdisciplinary communities such as the Green Design and Sustainable Engineering education community.

Today in History – July 4, 1997 – Launched on December 4, 1996, Pathfinder impacted the surface of Mars on July 4, 1997 at a velocity of  18 m/s (40 mph) and then bounced into the air 15 times at a maximum height of  15 meters (50 feet), before rolling and coming to rest  1 km from the initial impact site. The lander and landing site was named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station.  Pathfinder was designed, built and operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for NASA. 

The Sojourner Rover (above left) carried by Pathfinder rolled onto the Mars’ surface two days later on July 6. Click on the image above right to see a video of its initial positioning.

The project ended on March 10, 1998 when the lander failed to respond to communicate with controllers at JPL. The mission operated three times longer than its original 30-day planned lifetime. I was honored to have served on the Advisory Board for the Engineering Division at JPL and was impressed with their “faster, better, cheaper” approach to space exploration.

The images from Pathfinder-Sojourner are spectacular, ranging from videos of Martian sunsets (click on image above left to see movie), data on the composition of the Martian rocks and the role of water on Mars. Quoting from a NASA press release of June 29, 1998:

The current assessment of data from this instrument suggests that all of the rocks studied by the rover resemble a type of volcanic rock with a high silicon content known on Earth as andesite, covered with a fine layer of dust. All of the rocks appear to be chemically far different from meteorites discovered. on Earth that are believed to have come from Mars.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on the Pathfinder mission and space exploration. For related educational resources, visit the Aerospace Engineering Education, Engineering Mechanics Engineering Education, Computer Engineering Education or the Mechatronics Engineering Education Community sites.

Today in History – March 22, 1985 – The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer is adopted in response to studies documenting the harm caused to the environment and our own health by ozone-depleting substances.

Ozone is a colorless gas, closely related to the oxygen in the air we breathe. The ozone molecule is made up of three oxygen atoms (O₃), while normal atmospheric oxygen contains only two (O₂). At concentrations above one part per million (1 ppm), ozone is irritating to the skin, eyes, and upper respiratory system. In the lower atmosphere, ozone is a pollutant produced by the action of sunlight on nitrogen oxides and volitile organic compounds present in motor vehicle exhaust and, to a lesser extent, in some industrial emissions.

However in the far upper atmosphere (stratosphere) about 10 to 20 miles above the earth’s surface, a naturally occurring ozone layer performs a highly useful function by filtering out much of the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun. By reducing the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface of the earth, the ozone layer reduces the danger of skin cancer, cataracts, and other negative health and environmental effects.

Scientific studies beginning in the early 1970′s indicated that that the stratopheric ozone layer was becoming depleted by the emission of certain compounds produced on the earth, the most important being the chloroflourocarbons (CFC’s) that had been developed for use in air conditioning and refrigeration systems. Early refrigeration systems had used refrigerants that were flammable (propane), toxic (sulfur dioxide), or both (ammonia, methyl chloride). Joint work by General Motors, Frigidaire, and DuPont in the late 1920′s and 30”s had led to development of the CFC-based Freon refrigerants (see Freon ® – The History of Freon®), which were both non-flammable and non-toxic. These became widely used throughout the world in refrigeration and air conditioning system, as cleaning solvents, and in other applications. Leakage of these substances on earth was carried upward by winds to the stratosphere, where they interacted with ice crystals to cause a breakdown of the ozone molecules.

As evidence of ozone depletion accumulated, governments began taking action to limit emissions of CFC’s and other ozone-depleting substances. International cooperation to address ozone depeletion culminated in the signing of the The Vienna Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer on March 22, 1985. Its provisions were further strengthened by the signing of the The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer on September 16, 1987.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the ozone layer, global warming or view our Chemical, Biochemical, Biomolecular Engineering Education,  Environmental Engineering Education or our Green Design and Sustainable Enginering Education community sites.

Today in History – January 31, 1958 – Explorer 1 became the United States of America’s first satellite to orbit the Earth after it was launched on January 31, 1958. After the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957, the United States of America embarked upon a program to launch it own artificial satellite. The first American attempt to launch a satellite using a Vanguard 1 rocket occurred in December 1957 and failed miserably.

Following this failure, the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency, located at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, AL, was directed to launch a scientific satellite using a Jupiter C rocket developed under Dr. Wernher von Braun. The artificial satellite was designed, built and operated by the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory under the direction of Dr. William Pickering.

The satellite instrumentation of Explorer 1 was a cosmic ray counter designed by Dr. James Van Allen, a physicist at the University of Iowa. The cosmic ray counter experiment was designed to measure the radiation that surrounds the Earth. Once in orbit, the cosmic ray counter began to overload and measured a much lower cosmic ray count than previously assumed. Given this new information, Dr. Van Allen theorized that the cosmic ray equipment may have been exposed to very strong radiation caused by a belt of charged particles trapped in space by Earth’s magnetic field.

The data returned by Explorer 1 and another satellite launched in March 1958 prove the existence of intense belts of radiation that surround the Earth. These belts of radiation are now called Van Allen Belts and are considered to be the first major scientific discovery of the space age.

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the Explorer I and satellites. For more educational resources, see our aeronautical engineering education and electrical engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History – January 28, 1986 – Space Shuttle Challenger explodes after launch, killing the entire crew. American’s stared in shock at their televisions watching the Challenger accident in full motion video. The 35th Challenger’s flight had been previously scheduled for January 22, but delayed because of bad weather, high winds and icicles on the launch apparatus. Never had there been a launch approved in freezing weather conditions, but NASA had assured the public that the conditions were safe. They were anxious to launch due to economic considerations and scheduling backlogs. Political pressure has been suggested as well due to NASA’s heavy publicizing of Christa McAuliffe as the first school teacher in space. She had been selected under a highly competitive process from among 10,000 entries for the opportunity. The Challenger disaster was a severe blow to the American space program, bringing manned flights to a halt for many years. It was also a blow to the American public who had come to think of the Space Shuttle as an important symbol of national identify.

Speaking before the launch, Christa McAuliffe said: “One of the things I hope to bring back into the classroom is to make that connection with the students that they too are part of history, the space program belongs to them and to try to bring them up with the space age.”

Morton-Thiokol, one of the contractors for the Solid Rocket Motor was convinced that the cold weather would cause problems and had briefed NASA about their concerns. Two engineers, Robert Ebeling and Roger Boisjoly had previously urged a redesign on the booster rockets due to O-ring erosion in the booster field joints. The lowest temperature experienced by the O-rings in any previous mission was 53°F in the January 24, 1985 flight; the temperature predicted for Florida on January 28th was much lower, in the low 20′s °F.

The Rogers commission confirmed the cause of the Challenger disaster explosion to have been caused by a leak through the faulty O-ring seal in one of the solid rocket boosters. According to testimony by Morton-Thiokol engineer Boisjoly, management put pressure on the engineers to OK the launch saying: “Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.” The recommendation was reversed, discounting the concern about the O-rings as being “inconclusive” and launch was recommended, “based on their engineering assessment”, even though the engineers had no part in this recommendation. In spite of concerns expressed by others, NASA managers decided to approve the boosters for launch despite the fact that the predicted launch temperature was outside of their operational specifications and any test conditions.

Engineers must learn from both the technical and organizational failures that led to the tragic Challenger accident. The Engineering Pathway digital library has information on several excellent case studies, lesson plans and other curricular materials that can be used in the classroom. The Texas A&M case, for example, leads to these discussions questions:

• “What could NASA management have done differently?
• What should Roger Boisjoly have done differently (if anything)? In answering this question, keep in mind that at his age, the prospect of finding a new job if he was fired was slim. He also had a family to support.
• What do you (the students) see as your future engineering professional responsibilities in relation to both being loyal to management and protecting the public welfare?”

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the Challenger accident or engineering ethics.

Today in history – December 11th, 1997 – the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change was signed.

In 1992 the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted and was a major force in addressing the problem of global warming. As greenhouse gas levels rose around the world it became clear that countries had to be committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. This commitment came in the form of the Kyoto Protocol. Name after the city it was signed in, Kyoto, Japan, the now has over 174 parties that have ratified the protocol. Of these 36 are have committed to reduce their greenhouse gas levels by at least 5% of the 1990 baseline. These targets must be reached within a five year time frame between 2008 and 2012. One notable exception, is United States even though it is a member of the UNFCCC. On February 16th, 2005 the protocol entered into force and will expire in 2012.

The Kyoto Protocol affects almost all the major sectors of the economy and is considered to be the most far-reaching agreement on environment and sustainable development ever adopted. Since its inception many governments have adopted new policies to meet their protocol commitments. And in the future the protocol will act as a framework for any international agreement on climate change. Some doubt the connection between greenhouse gasses and climate change. But, the Fourth Assessment Report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, launched this year may have put an end to those doubts.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on global warming. For related educational resources, visit the Environmental Engineering Education, disciplinary community.

Also on this date in 1844, Dr. Horace Wells was the first to receive dental use of nitrous oxide. See related educational resources on anaesthetics or visit the Biomedical Engineering Education, disciplinary community.

Today in History – December 8, 1993 – First functional GPS (Global Positioning System) was developed. The technology initially developed for military use eventually made its way into our daily lives- most notably in cars and cell phones. Using information from a number of satellites orbiting the Earth (originally with 24, now a total of 30), a GPS receiver can pinpoint your location in real time with the help of atomic clocks, which makes this accurate to one billionth of a second. The GPS manufacturing and development industry has launched into a multi-billion dollar industry with its vast number of practical applications- from locating lost ships at sea to studying earthquakes by monitoring plate tectonics like the people at SCIGN (Southern California Integrated GPS Network). Soon enough, they will be available in credit card sizes, making it even more convenient to carry one around.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on GPS and geomatics. For related curricula, visit the Information Technology Education, Computer Engineering Education, Electrical Engineering Education , Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Education disciplinary communities.

Also on this date in 2004- After popularizing the PC in the ’80s, IBM sells its PC business to a Chinese company. The computer industry giant decided to let go of its retail computer division in order to concentrate on software development and providing services at a larger scale.