Crossing the Space Chasm Through Engineering Design

Catalog description

Five decades of human activity in space have provided the world with instant global communications and positioning, human and robotic exploration of the moon, planets and sun, and a perspective of earth which informs and influences our relationship with our environment. Unlike other technical revolutions space has not transitioned to a commercial, consumer market commodity. Rather its users and applications remain primarily large and institutional. To experience the challenges of engineering design for adoption of innovation, we will work in groups to identify uses of space, and a plan for their implementations, that could help space become “every day”. Through the process of design, we will confront the technical, economic, societal and political barriers to acceptance of innovation and to making new technologies beneficial to a wider range of users. Enrollment limited to 18 first year students.