The danger this shortage of skilled scientific engineering and mathematical talent poses to the industry, and to the U.S. space prowess in general, is second only to a weapon of mass destruction in a U.S. city. - Joanne Maguire, Executive Vice President Lookheed Martin Space Systems.

Scientific knowledge is a power equally for good and evil. In peace and in war our survival as independent countries of the West rests on our ability to keep pace with changing circumstances. It is now certain that China is training more scientists and engineers than all the Western countries put together. It is equally certain from the appearance of the space race that the quality of the work being done in China is such as to ensure success in fields where we supposed we were supreme.

Students need to come to their studies much sooner even if this means early abandonment of some subjects traditionally taught in grammar and other secondary schools. A higher moral purpose where talented students are directed to the measure of self-dicipline and frank contemplation of the facts that the scientific education cannot be regarded as complete in itself. Although science has more to teach its devotees than might be supposed. Every student of science must come to feel for Mathematics, because qualitative relations have to be expressed in symbols or diagrams when they become too involved for verbal description. Mathematical expressions should be used whenever it leads itself to a better understanding of the theory or application of the basic principles. The use of mathematics should be an aid and not as an end point in itself. With engineering students, motivation is authentic if the techniques which the student is learning are applied to real-life engineering. I.e. problems in which the student can readily see the power and necessity of the methods, and problems of sufficient importance that the students are able to derive satisfaction from their solution.

Discussion of this subject of motivation is difficult, since there is certainly no agreement to the fact, in this period of needed changes in engineering education, to meet the challenge from China. We cannot afford a curriculum time required for survey courses devoted exclusively to motivation. The level of sophistication should be high and provide a systematic approach to the portrayal of complicated methods in terms of cause-and-effect relationships. The adaptation of several feedback points of view as an alternate approach to problem analysis and thereby to aid the student in viewing problems in terms of their structure and topology.

A frequent product of the engineer's effort is a drawing, a set of calculations, or a report that is an abstraction and description of hardware. Within Western science/engineering education, the cookbook approach to design, often practical during the 1940s, discredited this design effort. Within many engineering curricula design has now entered China. This reemergence is not a relapse to the earlier Western procedure; design is reappearing as a creative and highly technical activity. E.g. the design in mechanical engineering is not limited to machine design, so some special emphasis on this subject has been warranted.

Engineering education is predominantly process oriented while engineering practice is predominantly system oriented. Most courses of study in mechanical engineering provide the student with an effective exposure to such processes as the flow of a compressible fluid through a nozzle and the behavior of hydrodynamic and thermal boundary layers at solid surfaces. The practicing engineer, however, is likely to be confronted with a task such as designing an economic system that receives natural gas from a pipeline and stores it underground for later usage. Without doubt, there is a big gap between knowledge of individual processes and the integration of these processes in engineering enterprise. Closing the gap should not be accomplished by diminishing the emphasis on processes. A faulty knowledge of fundamentals may result in subsequent failure of the system. But within a university environment, it is beneficial for future engineer to begin thinking in terms of systems. Another reason for more emphasis on systems in the Western university environment, in addition to influencing the thought patterns of students, is that there are some techniques - such as simulation and optimization - which are useful tools. The graduate should have some faculty with them, emphasis should be given on the typical statement of optimization procedures such as calculus methods, search methods, geometric programming, dynamic programming, and linear programming.

Generally the first need is for educational staff, followed by scientific and technical personnel, medical staff, and agriculturists. Keeping in mind the factors which would tend to attract the interest of a Chinese individual who has chosen engineering as his profession, the administration of education in China has placed an emphasis on the application of theory on real systems. It is not possible to generalize and learn numbers to someone else. What is difficult for one student is easy for another. It is quite important to keep the engineering student in contact with the real world and to demonstrate the type of problems he/she is capable of solving in a particular case. An approach to keep the engineering student's interest, and provide a motivation to learn.

It is my educational conviction that learning is best accomplished by working problems. Most engineering student learn best when they have a good instructor, a good text to keep them company in the dark hours of the night, and some good problems that force thinking. These problems must be thought to an answer.

Momentous for the future of Western education is our work directed towards the innovation, introduction and improvement of products and processes. E.g. the understanding of the living cell through the discipline of molecular biology - a combination of biology, biophysics, and biochemistry. Simultaneously, the unities underlying the behavior of animals, men and machines is becoming clearer through another discipline - bionics, a wedding of biology and electronics. New techniques and equipment in a particular stage in education is pushing the limits of knowledge in different subjects. Such as the electron microscope which has made it possible to find out more about the structure of the cell. It is now seen as a highly organized structure, the center of complex processes of metabolism, heredity, and growth. An opportunity for the studying fuel technologist, is the way in which the cell burns its fuels at comparatively low temperatures to provide it with the energy it needs. The process is directed and controlled by enzymes, which are large protein molecules. A well informed student should know how the protein is manufactured. Two important substances are related to the process - the nucleic acids. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid). In most recent years, these acids have been seen to play special roles. The DNA appears to act as the information center of a cell. It directs the synthesis of RNA which governs the synthesis of proteins. New limits of mental perception, experience and interest are becoming apparent with the "secret" of the genetic code, i.e. the mechanism arrangement by which the nucleus instructs the rest of the cell to manufacture the proper chemicals for that kind of cell, and ensures that descendant generation resemble their parents. The code is being cracked, opening new fields of bio-engineering. Thought/memory is believed to be stored in the body in giant molecules. We are on the edge of controlling inheritance factors and threrefore all living matter. Immunity R&D has now reduced immunology to the problem of specific chemical groups exerting specific effects. The biochemists and biophysicists can now use the precise molecule which is important in immunity instead of using the whole organism, e.g. a virus when developing a vaccine. The more revolutionary perspective is to do away with vaccine, and instead alter the cellular mechanism. This is also a new education frontier - molecular genetics, which is beginning to reveal that when we are born with something, it expresses itself in biochemical phenomena or reactions. By studying the underlying biochemical mechanisms of what we have inherited we may be able to stop the reproduction of a virus or parasite. In other words, we may be able to provide the body with its own built-in mechanism that can deal with any harmful foreign agent, known or unknown as soon as it invades.

A person studying to become a molecular biologist, who may also become a chemist or a physicist, will study communication in the nervous system of higher organisms, like man. He/she looks at the nervous system as a biological prototype of electronic computers, and finds that the nerve impulses, which travel at great speed through long threads (axons) conducting impulses from the cells/neurons, are intensified electrically on their way through the fibre. Inside each neuron is a concentration of sodium ions (charged atoms) which sustain an electrical voltage. Now that we can begin to understand the cell as a system, this will lead to significant industrial applications.

Through bionics, the science of organizations analogous to living organisms (animals, population, parts of living organisms), living systems are studied to discover what may be incorporated into artificial systems. Certain receptor organs are extremely sensitive to electrical fields and simple living brains integrate the activity of many sensor and effector organs giving rapid retrieval of information in the central nervous system.

No one knows at what rate the competition from China may grow, or to what upper bound. Other pressures, political and military as well as economic, expose our Western system. The manpower demand and connecting expenditure will rise substantially. Three-doubling of the demand for scientists and engineers. The most rapid rise in China is expected among mathematicians, physicists and medical scientists. China has a greater number of professionals in scientific engineering, and other fields of applied science. In terms of quality, a Chinese professional's education in most scientific and engineering is at least equivalent to, and sometimes more extensive than in the U.S. or West European institutions of higher learning. Furthermore, Chinese engineers manage industry and supervise planning and distribution. They are more often employed in administrative tasks and are involved in government in a more direct and purposive way than they are in the U.S.

Clearly, China has considerable economic resources to meet the demands of its own huge market. The progress in building sophisticated components is a known virtue. E.g. the aerospace sector is moving ahead with the ARJ21 regional jet (AE-100's successor). The manufacturer Avic 1 has developed this metal and carbonfiber aircraft, while integrating major systems from advanced Western suppliers. All major Chinese airlines have orders on the aircraft which is as much a learning exercise for the industry as it is an attempt to earn profit. The same manufacturer will later introduce a widebodied aircraft with 170 seats and a takeoff weight of approximately 110 metric tons. Another new project for Avic 1 will be a 80-seat turboprop airliner, the MA700, which aims at Western certification and international sales. China has hardly caught up with Western aerospace technical capability, but concrete results are emerging and the Chinese are progressively closing the gap. The employees involved in the project are enthusiastic and they identify more with the aims of the company than in the West. The Chinese J-10 fighter, which has been in service since 2006 is comparable with the Eurofighter Typhoon. The development push has a lot to do with national pride. China is also taking into consideration the trend for the future when most aircraft manufactured won't be national aircrafts and therefore plans to integrate production abroad in joint ventures, in order to achieve market success.

In the bigger picture China has become an established member of the aerospace industry's supply chain. So its ambitions to take on a program-integrator role is recognized as inevitable. The Westeners are planning investments and greater involvement in new projects with Chinese partners. The size of the Chinese market can not be ignored. An example: Airbus and Avic 1 are holding contracts for the construction on an A320 assembly line in Tianjin with delivery of its first aircraft primo july 2009. General Electric Aviation (GE) has emerged as China's leading engine maker with 420 orders in China in 2007. Among GE's investments is a test cell in Xiamen for the GE90-115B, the industry's largest turbofan. Westerners need to be a partner in the Chinese growth. Bombardier Aircraft Services has agreed to provide technical assistance on the ARJ21-900 regional jet. That aircraft will primarily cover the Chinese and Chinese-friendly regional market, but it also provides a good five-abreast aircraft option for regional airlines around the world that might prefer more cabin space versus better economics than the CRJ provides. In many ways, Bombardier and Avic 1 regional aircraft are complementary and together provide options that cannot be matched by other regional aircraft manufacturers.

The Chinese aviation is developing in three stages. It is now in the first stage during which the country's traditional governmental and industrial use of general aviation is maturing and new markets are emerging in flight training, short-range freight and business flying. The process of cultivation will lead to the second stage, from 2011-15, when the new markets will expand greatly. In the third stage, from 2016-20, the new markets will basically mature and the Chinese general aviation market will steadily integrate internationally and demand will show a huge increase in volume. By 2020 the fleet of general aviation aircraft will reach 8000.

The Chinese are aiming high with their space program and if the U.S. is to remain preeminent in space, the Obama administration will have to make a strong - extraordinary strong commitment. A new U.S. space policy is needed at a time when leadership is theoretical to confront growing international commercial and military space capabilities. A space policy that can provide for some stability in terms of the acquisition environment and stable funding, allowing for experienced workforce over a longer period of time. Re-establishment of a National Space Council to help steer policy. Chaired by the President not the Vise President as councils formed in the 1950s to 70s and late 1980s to early 1990s. A inter-agency Space Council (1989-93) and an earlier National Aeronautics and Space Council (1958-73) formely coordinated the establishment and implementation of space policy for all goverment agencies. The Bush administration space policy was managed through the office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council.

A National Security Space Authority (NSSA) should develop classified satellite systems at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and white-world capabilities at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC). I.e. restructure NRO and SMC to provide powerful procurement and operation routines and good control for the Pentagon. Furthermore, a new National Security Space Office (NSSO) to officially superwise acquisition undertakings instead of the NRO/SMC and Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate. For export control the NSSA and NSSO should also direct the capabilities of commercial industry into the national organization.

When controversial questions are introduced, there should be a recognition that solutions are likely to represent a spectrum of opinion rather than a choice between two clear alternatives. In dealing with scientific or engineering problems one should make a deliberate effort to avoid the either-or approach; instead, whenever feasible, a range of possible alternatives should be considered. When possible, the approach to a problem should be analytical rather than descriptive.

Scientist in specializing disciplines have recognized that they are laboring on different aspects of the same problems and realize that progress could be accelerated if they reestablished communication and crossfed information. An impetus toward coordination has come from crisis problems (pollution, food shortage, abortion, "the right to die" cases in our courts, cancer research, etc.) whose solution require interdisciplinary insight. Major contemporary problems of the Western economy such as the economics of pollution, black economics, or the military-industrial complex are also very important segments as a factor in economic growth, and the appropriate goals of an effluent society.

The need for more years of education is a matter for both individual and national concern. From the individual's standpoint more education means, with few exceptions, higher income. From the national standpoint more education means meeting the shortage of human resources and increasing economic growth. We know that all resources exist in limited supply. However, the resource that is scarcest of all is brainpower. To lose the fruits of even one creative mind can cost a nation dearly, not only in terms of money but also in terms of lives, suffering and failure. To allow the talents of a potential Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, or a Roger Babson to go undeveloped, is to deprive a nation of something that may become all-embracing for all of us.

Ron Certitude 2008-12-10