Gene noted that the computers during the Apollo missions had 1\/10th<\/SUP> a megabyte of memory capacity. He said their communications during the Mercury missions were more like the Pony Express. They talked about the pros and cons of a very young workforce. It was a challenge for that young workforce to come to grips with the death of the Apollo 1 astronauts. Yet the incident created \u201ca sense of urgency and dedication\u201d in all of them to do all their work in the honor of those astronauts and President John F. Kennedy who had challenged them to go to the moon.
<\/P>
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.hq.nasa.gov\/office\/pao\/History\/alsj\/a13\/ap13-KSC-70PC-107HR.jpg\")
Their candor and humor kept students and adults in the audience engaged. Even though we knew they survived, it was hard not to get caught up in the story as they told about each challenge and how their chances of survival kept getting smaller. Apparently it was Hollywood and not Gene who said failure is not an option. Gene said his words were \u201cthis crew is coming home.\u201d
Jim noted that crises don\u2019t bother him anymore and gave students the advice to \u201cnever give up\u201d and have a \u201cpositive attitude.\u201d When asked what advice to give a future engineer, Fred said simply \u201cyou\u2019re interested in the right profession.\u201d
Principia announced at the event that they are adding an engineering program. This liberal arts school has been doing amazing engineering without a formal program. They faced some epic challenges in a solar car race <\/A>this summer that we\u2019ll tell you more about in the near future.
The Apollo 13 presentation reminded me of the epic student challenges NASA\u2019s Charlie Camarda<\/A> and Boeing\u2019s Michael Richey<\/A> shared recently at our analyst event. In many ways they are working to cultivate what the Apollo team noted was happening through those early NASA programs. Here are Charlie and Michael with Bill Boswell behind the world\u2019s largest largest 3D printed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV):
![\"boeing](\"http:\/\/community.plm.automation.siemens.com\/legacyfs\/online\/wordpress\/images\/2014\/11\/boeing-nasa-siemens-analyst-event1-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/A>Charlie was one of the astronauts on STS-114, the \u201cReturn to Flight\u201d Space Shuttle mission.
In his introduction to Charlie, Bill asked \u201cCan you imagine what it must have been like to be on that first mission to return to space after the Columbia disaster?\u201d
Prior to the mission, Charlie worked with colleagues to address that epic disaster. The solution took creativity and thinking outside the box. Those are skills Charlie is working to make stronger in future engineers through his work with the next generation. Learn more in this video interview:
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=foWb4U5WztE
Some of my favorite quotes from Charlie\u2019s presentation:
\u201cHow do we motivate and sustain and inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists.\u201d
We must \u201ctransform the way we educate the next generation to keep them totally engaged\u2026with problem based active learning.\u201d
We need to \u201cinfuse in the curriculum more emphasis on innovation and creativity.\u201d
\u201cI would tell students to go into engineering because engineering \u2026 is trying to discover and conceive things no one has ever thought of.\u201d<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
Charlie and NASA are working with companies like Boeing and Siemens to provide students with projects to do just that. Learn more about the unmanned aerial vehicle challenges Boeing has organized:
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2iJbPbZI8Oo
Michael noted:\u201cSo an epic challenge \u2013 based in a project that had a timeline, customer, budgetary constraints, students felt like they were contributing to the social good, which is really inspiring for the students.\u201d
\u201cThis year we\u2019re challenging the students with the first responder model \u2026 it anchors a real-world social problem with systems engineering contextual model. Enables students to collaborate and optimize that solution space. And this exactly what we need our engineers doing when they come into the Boeing company.
\u201cThis isn\u2019t the old model of engineering…this is high tech low touch global, a very interesting field to be in right now.\u201d<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
Michael also shared how these challenges are \u201cmoving away from the sage on the stage, to the guide on the side\u201d to help students learn more effectively.
While the video interviews above provide some of the key highlights, I encourage you to watch the full presentation<\/A>. It’s just an hour and will give you a good overview of what the aerospace industry is doing to train the next generation.
Desktop Engineering recently interviewed Michael to share a little more about about these epic challenges and the Boeing AerosPACE program<\/A>. Also Inside Higher Ed also featured more on the AerosPACE program recently in Taking Off<\/A>.
It is clear that industry is collaborating with academia in very unique ways that will create more creative and effective future engineers.
– Dora<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week \u2013 thanks to our friends at Principia College – I took my son to hear Apollo 13\u2019s Captain James Lovell, Fred Haise and Mission Flight Control Director Gene Kranz. It was amazing to hear thes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[102,1],"tags":[19],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-news","tag-academic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}