No, it’s an uncontrollable research satellite crashing through Earth’s atmosphere and coming, possibly, to a neighborhood near you!

What a summer. As I write, hard on the heels of an earthquake, followed by a hurricane, we now await the potential arrival of flaming space debris ranging in size from 1 to 300+ pounds. Are you kidding me? No, it isn’t some skit from Saturday Night Live, this really is happening.

So how exactly have we arrived at this intersection of space and time?
Well, in what should only come as a surprise to newcomers to our planet, the culprit is actually the oldest of causes — human fallibility. But I get too far ahead.

Back in 1991, NASA, using the Space Shuttle Discovery, launched the $740 million Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) — a 35 foot long, 15 foot diameter structure weighing in at a modest 7-tons — to study, according to NASA, “the physical and chemical processes of the Earth’s stratosphere, mesosphere, and lower thermosphere.”

NASA notes, “Before UARS, little was known about the atmospheric region between 80 kilometers and 300 kilometers above the Earth, since radio-equipped balloons would explode at that altitude, and ordinary satellites burn up. Although the mission was originally intended for only a three-year duration, its actual deployment was long enough to observe an entire 11-year solar cycle.”

By December 2005, UARS had run out of gas, literally. With the little fuel left on-board, NASA decommissioned UARS and lowered the satellite’s orbit. NASA had no plan to recover the satellite and fully expected it to passively orbit Earth until it re-entered the atmosphere and burned up. No harm, no foul.

Fast forward to 2011 and surprise, surprise. The satellite will indeed re-enter the atmosphere but will not burn up completely. NASA now estimates the satellite will break into more than 100 pieces as it enters the atmosphere, at a speed of about 5 miles per second, with approximately twenty-six of the heaviest pieces reaching the ground. The debris could be scattered over an area about 500 miles long somewhere in an area stretching from lower Canada to southern South America. Incidentally, the majority of the world’s population lives there.

The good news, according to NASA orbital debris scientist Mark Matney, is that most of the area is covered in water and there are vast regions of empty land, which is great if you are not the U.S. Navy or merchant shipping or had plans to go fishing or hiking in the wilderness. Mr. Matney goes on to say, “If someone is lucky enough to be near the re-entry at nighttime, they’ll get quite a show.”

So, if you haven’t experienced all the tumultuous events you need this summer, put on your helmet, track shoes, and get ready. Maybe I will get lucky and something will hit that old car out back.

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! The cry goes up from near and far across the country as the 9 to 10 percent of Americans currently unemployed desperately seek gainful employment.  Politicians of every stripe rail about the jobs crisis, point fingers, and promise this or that pie-in-the-sky solution if elected.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the electric power industry alone will have to replace nearly 100,000 skilled workers, more than 25,000 in the nuclear industry alone, by 2015.

While the solar industry is just beginning to get started here in America, there are approximately 93,500 direct and indirect jobs in the American solar industry currently, employing, by comparison, about 9,200 more workers than the U.S. steel production sector, according to 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics.  As demand for lower cost and more environmentally friendly electrical power increases, continued job growth in not only the solar power generation sector but also the wind power generation sector are projected to dramatically increase over the next decade.

Projections for meaningful job growth in the ever changing field of alternative fuels are robust as research continues to discover and develop new approaches and technologies.
The modern military, once the job of last resort for many of the minimally educated, requires a better educated and extremely more technically savvy recruit to efficiently interface with the increasing sophisticate weapons systems of tomorrow.

So what is the root cause of the disconnect between those seeking employment and the thousands of jobs which remain open week after week? Why do some many remain unemployed when employers across the country are repeatedly advertising open positions, not just low wage jobs at fast food joints, but good paying jobs in the health care field, the electrical power industry, accounting, IT, and education, for example?

The painfully obvious secret is that America’s work force is woefully unprepared for the skills intensive jobs that will be created in the 21st century.  Gone are the days when a simple high school education was enough to secure a lifetime of meaningful and well compensated employment.  The simple fact is that 21st century jobs will require 21st century skill sets.  And these jobs are not in some distant future time, they are here today.  Employers across all sectors of the economy face the daunting challenge of trying to expand existing businesses or, even worse, trying to create new businesses when there is a marked scarcity of currently qualified applicants and faint hope of seeing that pool of applicants improve in the near future.

The good news:  Industry partnerships with various educational institutions as well as private sector internships and mentor programs are on the rise.  Educators are finally beginning to realize that teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, is not producing the types of graduates today’s industry needs, much less the work force of tomorrow.
The not so good news:  The scope and pace of widespread implementation and use of these professional and other technical education programs is far too slow to have any real meaningful impact in the time frame required.

As has so often been the case, the professional engineering and architectural communities have the opportunity to lead the way in the transition to a better prepared work force.  Despite claims to the contrary, the government can help, but it is not the answer to solving the problem.  Empowering the work force with new skill sets and a fresh sense of resolve to improve their circumstances can and should be done by those most directly affected.  While progress in this area has and is being made, the country is way behind the curve in creating the type of work force needed for success in the 21st century.  Today’s professionals must take up the challenge to create tomorrow’s skilled replacements.  Our very future depends upon it.

Despite commentaries both pro and con, everyone has to acknowledge that President Obama is indeed a man of his word.  Back in 2008, candidate Obama promised that if elected he would bring dramatic change to Washington specifically and to the country in general.  Well, some 2 1/2 years later, no one currently residing on Planet Earth can deny that this certainly has been the case.

So, how much better off are we as a nation in the aftermath of all this promised change?  Well, let’s see.  We currently have an unemployment rate of 9.1 or 9.2%, depending on which guesstimate you chose to believe.  We also have a $14+ trillion debt load, the highest in U.S. history, the majority of which is owned by our close friend and ally China.  Remember back not so long ago when only astronomers spoke in terms of trillions?  We also have a new mandatory participation health care program which, despite protestations that it will “bend the curve of health care costs downward”, is projected by the OMB to cost average Americans more not less.  We have had government ownership, until very recently, of the U.S. auto industry, with the notable exception of the Ford Motor Company.  We have, for the first time in U.S. history, a downgrade of America’s credit rating, due in large part to the fact that few believe the federal government can or will ever take concrete action to wean its appetite for credit and actually live within its means.  Following 50 years in the vanguard, we have gone from being the leader in human space exploration to relying on others to provide transportation for our astronauts.  And the list of changes, just like the deficit, continues to grow each and every day.

Yes, change is inevitable, but one has to wonder how much of this change America can endure and still remain the great nation, at least up until current times, we have always been.  But no matter what happens, President Obama has indeed been a man of his word.  He promised change and that has most certainly been the order of the day.  Whether the majority of Americans feel that it is, has been, or will be good for the country will to be answered in 14 months.

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anyone could have. ~Author Unknown

And so it appears to be the case with innovative thinking and concrete action to achieve a two part goal: energy independence and environmental stewardship. Neither part can become a fully achieved reality independent of the other and have the ultimate goal achieved successfully.

Politicians, not statesmen, have expended enough hot air to fill a dirigible blaming anybody while disclaiming personal responsibility for anything, various ‘experts’ have wasted gallons of ink and reams of paper raising alarms while simultaneously reciting a litany of insurmountable obstacles, all with the unsurprising result that nothing has been accomplished other than more delay in reaching the ultimate goal.

On the one hand, we have the issue of environmental stewardship focused, rightly or wrongly, on a continuing discussion regarding the impact of global warming. Is global warming a proven scientific fact? Yes. It is part of a recurring cycle going back eons, just like global cooling. Does global warming create conditions which could increase the severity and frequency of catastrophic weather events or which could potentially change the natural cycles which preserve the Earth as we know it? Yes. Is global warming caused by or exacerbated by human activity? This topic is still open to debate, but does that preclude taking any action to ameliorate the consequences? Only at our own risk.

On the other hand, we have the issue of energy independence focused, rightly or wrongly, on decades of discussion regarding the continued use of and reliance on fossil fuels to generate energy. Does the world need to find an alternative to fossil fuels? Yes, for many reasons. Is there a single solution or alternative to fossil fuel use? Most probably not, but again, does that justify inaction or, at best, a feeble and cautious nibbling around the edges?

America’s history is replete with examples of unassuming people doing great things for the betterment of all. George Washington didn’t wait for all the answers to be known before fighting for independence. President Truman didn’t wait to move forward with the Manhattan Project because nuclear energy was a new frontier. President Kennedy didn’t hedge on his pledge to put an American astronaut on the Moon because there were too many seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

In the end, is America ultimately to become characterized by a paraphrase from Mother Teresa, “We the willing, led by the unknowing”? Will America continue to be obsessed with and argue about how best to rearrange the deck chairs on our own Titanic while the ship sinks? Or will America’s engineers, turning ideas into realities, rise to the occasion and provide the self-serving and special interest oriented political class a way forward without them having to shoulder or acknowledge any responsibility, but for which they can loudly take credit when successful?

Without question, the clock is ticking. Discovering the ultimate solution(s) will have to come from engineers, scientists, researchers and other professionals, not from those whose foremost interest is self-preservation and promotion.

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do. ~Sarah Ban Breathnach