• Question: If you could go back to a time involving engineering what time and who would you meet .what would you go see and when would you go ?

    Asked by Katie17 to Sarah, Chris, Paul, Priyanka, Ryan on 7 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Priyanka Dhopade

      Priyanka Dhopade answered on 7 Mar 2016:

      This is a tough one! There are many engineering events and people I would like to go back in time to see. I’ve narrowed it down to two:

      First of all, I’d like to back to 1903 to witness the first airplane being flown by the Wright brothers. I would love to meet them as they were both amazing inventors and clever engineers! You can read more about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers

      Secondly, I would like to go back to meet Valentina Tereshkova, the Russian cosmonaut, as she was preparing to become the first woman in space in 1963. She flew on the Vostok-6 capsule which also required some clever engineering from the Russians. She ended up spending almost 3 days in space and orbited the earth 48 times! I would love to chat to her and absorb some of her courage! Read more about her: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Tereshkova

    • Photo: Christine Coonick

      Christine Coonick answered on 15 Mar 2016:

      Great question Katie!

      There are so many great engineering firsts… it’s hard to choose.

      But I guess being a solar engineer I would go back to 1958 where they were developing the first solar power system to be used in space. The US satellite Vanguard was the first space craft to be powered by solar. It must be really nerve wrecking to create something that is to be the only power source for something so important – it’s not like you can just pop into space to fix it if it doesn’t work properly 🙂

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