The end of a space exploration milestone

As I write, the end of a significant chapter in the history of space exploration is scheduled to end March 6, 2001. On that date, the Mir Station is scheduled to be taken out of orbit to crash in the Pacific Ocean.

After working in the space exploration industry on and off since the beginning of my engineering career, I see the Mir as a triumph of technical achievement, not the failure it has been made out to be in the popular press.

Most articles published today talk more about the challenges and problems that existed with Mir during the last few years of its operational life instead of the accomplishments of the people or technology involved: 28 long-term expeditions; 106 cosmonauts from several countries, including several from the United States; untold reams of scientific information, including biomedical data on the effects of microgravity on the human body, for example.

How many systems do you know of that can operate for five times their design life without a major or complete overhaul? The Mir station was originally designed to operate for three years, but was in operation for nearly 15. In my book, that is an outstanding technical achievement, even more so because a space station must operate in an environment we still know very little about.

The Mir station was designed and launched by the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics near the end of its viability as a space power and survived longer than the country did. This points to the excellent technology and effort Russians put toward a technological cause they believed in.

I am currently part of another project that points out the excellence of Russian technology. This technology has been advanced beyond the status of anything available in the United States, partially because they have more than 450 man-years of technological experience dedicated to trying to solve a single problem: introducing vaccines and other medications into the body without using a needle.

Actually, that process has been around for a while (first introduced in the U.S. military in the early 1950s), but the Russians continued to focus on developing the technology when the United States and other countries abandoned it. Consequently, Russia has something to offer the world and I hope to help make it a reality.

As engineering entrepreneurs, we must be willing to go where the technology leads us and where it is. In the global economy, we cannot afford to be shortsighted and look at technology only to resolve engineering challenges from within our own countries or companies. We must be willing to reach out and find the best way to design, build and bring to market that better mousetrapÑwherever it comes from.

Coming next month is the first of a four-part series on patent issues for the engineering entrepreneur. These articles will feature a guest writer, J. Richard Johnson, who, after getting his mechanical engineering degree, decided to get a law degree.

— Niel Leon
Committee on Engineering
Entrepreneurship
leonn@asme.org

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