Like poets or philosophers, engineers’ wondrous creations are meditations on the human place in the universe, on the human relationship to machines, on the nature of human experience. The Apollo Program broke new ground in all three. To the challenges of the future, the Apollo model may not be the way to go. Kennedy’s “Man, moon, decade” provided a clear, straightforward challenge with no ambiguity as to its success. Today we face problems (like the future of human spaceflight, as well as energy independence and climate change) that are large, vaguely defined, with a host of stakeholders and non-linear interactions. But the Giant Leaps Symposium showed what aspects of Apollo are relevant to our future: the ambition to tackle a problem that may not be solvable, the values of disciplined engineering, the willingness to take risks to achieve a higher goal, and the creative energies unleashed by an inspired project. Forty years from now, we will be celebrating tomorrow’s Apollo project, whose seeds and future leaders are undoubtedly on our campus today. David A. Mindell, an engineer and historian, is the Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing and the director of MIT’s Program in Science, Technology and Society. His most recent book is “Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight.” He may be reached at mindell@mit.edu.
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AEROASTRO 2008-2009