Today in History - August 8, 2007 - Astronaut Barbara Morgan, an elementary school teacher from Idaho, was the first teacher to have a successful voyage in space. Morgan’s flight was on the STS-118 (August 8-21, 2007), the 119th space shuttle flight, the 22nd flight to the station, and the 20th flight for Endeavour. The STS-118 mission was completed in 12 days and 18 hours after traveling 5.3 million miles in space.

Sally Ride’s website on this event says: “Teachers inspire wonder, broaden our horizons and encourage our dreams. They open doors to discovery and exploration. We invite you to join in on our celebration of teachers. We’re honored to acknowledge Educator Astronaut Barbara Morgan for her accomplishments on STS-118, and for being an excellent representative of all teachers.”

8/08 is viewed as a lucky day in Chinese numerology and it was for Barbara Morgan. But the launch for Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher to fly in space in the “Teacher in Space program”, was not so lucky. She flew on the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986 and she and the other astronauts perished soon after launch due to an O-ring failure. Barbara Morgan had trained as McAuliffe’s backup for this ill-fated flight. The Teacher in Space program was suspended after the Challenger disaster until Morgan’s flight in 1986.

Space Shuttle Challenger explodes after launch, killing the entire crew. American’s stared in shock at their televisions watching the Challenger accident in full motion video. The 35th Challenger’s flight had been previously scheduled for January 22, but delayed because of bad weather, high winds and icicles on the launch apparatus. Never had there been a launch approved in freezing weather conditions, but NASA had assured the public that the conditions were safe. They were anxious to launch due to economic considerations and scheduling backlogs. Political pressure has been suggested as well due to NASA’s heavy publicizing of Christa McAuliffe as the first school teacher in space. She had been selected under a highly competitive process from among 10,000 entries for the opportunity. The Challenger disaster was a severe blow to the American space program, bringing manned flights to a halt for many years. It was also a blow to the American public who had come to think of the Space Shuttle as an important symbol of national identify.

Speaking before the launch, Christa McAuliffe said: “One of the things I hope to bring back into the classroom is to make that connection with the students that they too are part of history, the space program belongs to them and to try to bring them up with the space age.”

Morton-Thiokol, one of the contractors for the Solid Rocket Motor was convinced that the cold weather would cause problems and had briefed NASA about their concerns. Two engineers, Robert Ebeling and Roger Boisjoly had previously urged a redesign on the booster rockets due to O-ring erosion in the booster field joints. The lowest temperature experienced by the O-rings in any previous mission was 53°F in the January 24, 1985 flight; the temperature predicted for Florida on January 28th was much lower, in the low 20’s °F.

The Rogers commission confirmed the cause of the Challenger disaster explosion to have been caused by a leak through the faulty O-ring seal in one of the solid rocket boosters. According to testimony by Morton-Thiokol engineer Boisjoly, management put pressure on the engineers to OK the launch saying: “Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.” The recommendation was reversed, discounting the concern about the O-rings as being “inconclusive” and launch was recommended, “based on their engineering assessment”, even though the engineers had no part in this recommendation. In spite of concerns expressed by others, NASA managers decided to approve the boosters for launch despite the fact that the predicted launch temperature was outside of their operational specifications and any test conditions.

Engineers must learn from both the technical and organizational failures that led to the tragic Challenger accident. The Engineering Pathway educational digital library has information on several excellent case studies, lesson plans and other curricular materials that can be used in the classroom. The Texas A&M case, for example, leads to these discussions questions:

• “What could NASA management have done differently?
• What should Roger Boisjoly have done differently (if anything)? In answering this question, keep in mind that at his age, the prospect of finding a new job if he was fired was slim. He also had a family to support.
• What do you (the students) see as your future engineering professional responsibilities in relation to both being loyal to management and protecting the public welfare?”

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on the Challenger accident or engineering ethics.

Today in History -August 7, 1944 - Largest electromechanical calculator ever built. The IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC) (also called the Harvard Mark I) was the largest electromechanical calculator ever built and the first automatic digital calculator in the United States. Its size was 51 feet wide and eight feet high and weighted nearly five tons. Inspired by Babbage’s vision of the analytical engine, it also added important new features. The upper left photo shows the assembly of the ASCC at Harvard in February 1944 with workers wearing the suits and ties typical of IBM even today.

IBM reports that it linked 78 adding machines and calculators together, using 765,000 parts, 3,300 relays, over 500 miles of wire and more than 175,000 connections. Using the calculators in synchronous parallel, it could perform table lookup and the four fundamental arithmetic operations, in any specified sequence, on numbers up to 23 decimal digits in length. It used punched cards, paper tape and manually set switches as input. For internal and intermediate results it had 60 switch registers for constants, 72 storage counters, a central multiplying-dividing unit, functional counters for computing transcendental functions, and three interpolators for reading functions punched into perforated tape. Electric typewriters or punched cards were used for output.

Howard H. Aiken, a graduate student in theoretical physics at Harvard University in the 1930’s originally proposed a large-scale digital calculator to the faculty of Harvard’s physics department. As funding was a major issue, he later took his idea to the Monroe Calculating Machine Company and then to IBM where James Bryce championed the idea and obtained funding from IBM President Thomas J. Watson in 1939 at IBM’s North Street Laboratory in Endicott, N.Y. Although progress was slowed by wartime demands, the calculator parts were eventually shipped to Harvard in February 1944 and assembled on site. It was completed and presented on August 7, costing IBM approximately $200,000 on the project. IBM donated an additional $100,000 to Harvard to cover its operating expenses. It was used for 15 years, originally for use by the Navy during the war to run repetitive calculations for the production of mathematical tables. Many of its electromechanical counters and parts are now on exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

It was only a few years later on February 14, 1946 that the world’s first fully digital computer, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), was unveiled. Six of the ENIAC programmers were the women seen in the second photo, above left. See Lucy Sanders February 14th blog on this event and its connection to women in computing.

Thank goodness for HP’s vision in launching the first hand-held calculator, the HP-35, on February 1, 1972. See my February 1 blog on this event for more details. And check out Gordon Bell’s blog on the introduction of the PDP-11 minicomputer on March 13, 1970.

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the history of computing. For more educational resources, see our electrical engineering education, computer science education and computer engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History - August 2, 1873 - the world’s first cable-powered railroad in San Francisco is tested. The inventor of the cable car was Andrew S. Hallidie (center image above) and contracted by the Clay Street Hill Railroad Company in San Francisco. Hallidie’s system used a continuous looped wire rope that was placed in a tube below the surface of the ground. A motor kept the rope in continuous motion (first image below) and the rope was grasped and released by a griping device on the passenger car and controlled by the “driver”. Bells were used to warn other cars and pedestrians that a cable car was on its way. A code was developed so that the bell could be used to communicate between cable car drivers as well.

Legend has it that Hallidie’s inspiration for the cable car came in 1869 after witnessing horses being whipped while they struggled on the wet cobblestones to pull a horsecar up Jackson Street. When a horse slipped, it was sometimes dragged to its death.

Hallidie’s design was described in the Scientific American Supplement, September 17, 1881 with the title: The Wire Rope Street Railways of San Francisco, California. Hallidie describes how his cable car system operates and the various San Francisco companies (at that time) that had successfully adapted the cable car for their street railway company.

Andrew Smith Hallidie tested the first cable car at 4 o’clock in the morning, August 2nd, 1873, on Clay Street, in San Francisco. For more information, see the San Francisco Cable Car Museum and find out more about how cable cars work, their history and where they operate today. Or check out the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on cable cars and mass transportation systems.

Cable cars are a great example of the application of simple machines and mechanical advantage. For more information see the Engineering Pathway’s curricular resources and the Mechanical Engineering Education disciplinary community.

Today in History - July 31, 1790 - first U.S. patent went to Samuel Hopkins for an improvement “in the making Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process.” President George Washington, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson signed the patent. Only two other patents were granted that year, one for a new candle-making process and the other the flour-milling machinery of Oliver Evans.

The Engineering Pathway has a number of educational resources on patents and inventors. I’m a big fan of the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). NCIIA “fosters invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship in higher education as a way of creating innovative, commercially viable, and socially beneficial businesses and employment opportunities in the United States.” The website provides information on faculty and student grant opportunities, conferences and resources.

One question I’ve had is why do we not hear more about patents by women? It turns out that pior to the U.S. Patent Act of 1790, only men could author a patent. Even after the federal law was passed, women couldn’t patent as most states did not allow women to legally own property. For example, there is much speculation that the authorship of the cotton gin patent of 1794 should have included Catherine Greene on the patent, as well as that of the African American slaves who also were not allowed to patent. In fact, it was not until March 3, 1831 that Thomas Jennings became the first African-American to receive a patent for his invention of ‘dry-scouring’, a process better known today as dry-cleaning. See Chad-Eric Montgomery’s March 3rd blog on this event.

Mary Kies was the first woman to be awarded a U.S. patent. Her invention was a process for weaving straw with silk or thread. Alas the patent file was destroyed in the great Patent Office fire in 1836 and an exact copy of the patent is no longer available. Kies invention has been credited for boosting the U.S. hat industry. Even First Lady, Dolley Madison praised her contributions. Until about 1840, most of the other 20 patents issued to women concerned applications that women saw in their everyday work: apparel, tools, cook stoves, and fire places.

Below I highlight some of our other blogs on women’s contributions to engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship.

My daughter, Arianne Agogino Gieringer wrote the April 25th blog on Florence Rena Sabin, the first woman elected to National Academy of Science. Dr. Florence Rena Sabin, Professor of Histology in the Johns Hopkins Medical School was also the first woman to be a full professor in that institution and also the first woman to be President of the American Association of Anatomists.

Patricia Galloway, first female president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), blogs on Elsie Eaves - first female engineer in ASCE to be elected as a full member on March 14, 1927.

Lucy Sanders, CEO of the Center for Women in Information Technology blogs on the unveiling of the ENIAC on February 14, 1946, the world’s first digital electronic computer, as well as on the contributions of women in computing.

Jasmina Vujic, Chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of California at Berkeley, blogs on Lise Meitner and her groundbreaking publication that first introduced the world to nuclear fission on February 11, 1939.

Chad-Eric Montgommery blogs on two African American women. On March 1, 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to receive a medical degree. Also see the blog on Sara Breedlove Walker, the first self-made millionairess hair product inventions for African American women.

Pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Helen Taussig, was one of the doctors at Johns Hopkins who performed the first open heart surgery on November 29, 1944.

I enjoyed researching the blog for November 13, 1913 – Mary Phelps Jacobs invents modern bra. And also for the one on Dr. Mary Walker, the first female army surgeon to be awarded the Medal of Honor on November 11, 1875.

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s many educational resources on women in engineering, women in information technology, women inventors and gender equity. One of my favorite resources is FairerScience, with practical advice on how to develop gender equitable classrooms and practices in math, science and engineering.

For a more in-depth analysis of the issues associated with gender equity in our faculties and recommended solutions, read our “most commented” resource - the National Academies’ Beyond Bias and Barriers report. My editorial on the report was published in ASEE Prism, November 2006, vol. 16 (3). We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions as well.

Today in History – June 25, 1903 – Marie Curie defends her doctoral thesis, then gets Nobel Prize five months later. Did she just procrastinate? Or were thesis standards higher a century ago at the Sorbonne? I haven’t seen a good explanation for the delay, other than she was busy discovering new elements.

Earlier in 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie made repeated separations of the various substances in pitchblende (photo on left) and used a Curie electrometer to identify two unidentified radioactive fractions that remained in pitchblende after uranium was removed. They discovered that the one containing mostly bismuth also contained a new element they named “polonium” in honor of the country of Marie’s birth. The barium fraction contained another new element, which they named “radium” from the Latin word for ray. They were able to add two new elements in the Periodic Table. While the chemical properties of the two new elements were completely dissimilar, they both had strong radioactivity. Radium was later isolated as a pure metal in 1902, but the discovery was not published in the popular press until this day in 1903.

Evidently, Marie Curie was so focused on her research that she had neglected to complete the writing of her thesis, which she finally got around to defending on June 25, 1903 titled: “Research on radioactive substances”.

Marie and Pierre Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Henri Becquerel, their contributions associated with the discovery of spontaneous radioactivity. Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 “in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element”. Alas Pierre Curie was not able to share the Nobel Prize this time as he was killed earlier in a carriage accident in a rainstorm in Paris on April 11, 1906. The curie is a unit of radioactivity originally named in honor of Pierre Curie by the Radiology Congress in 1910, after his death.

Marie Curie was the first person to win two Nobel prizes. Her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie (photo below right), also won a Nobel Prize in 1935.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Marie and Pierre Curie and radium. Or visit the Nuclear Engineering Education community site for more information. Also our resources on women in science and engineering and gender equity today.