Question: What do you think is going to become the biggest challenge for engineers in the future.

Anthony Hollingsworth answered on 15 Mar 2012:

I think 2 things:

1: making the walls for fusion reactors like ITER (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iter) and right here in the UK the jet lab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus). this is something they havent got sorted yet and they will need it very much! this is the kind of technology that can save the planet! the walls need to be very special though, they have to withstand a harsh environment, allow the production of part of the fuel, called tritium, and also convert neutrons into thermal heat to produce power

2: laser optical systems for laser fusion (like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiPER and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility) at the moment the laser is so powerful it melts everything! fixing this is the biggest step they need to make laser fusion happen, which again is the kind of engineering that really could save the planet!!