Using Space Travel to Teach Engineering to Liberal Arts Majors

This paper describes the author's experience developing and delivering a new course for non-engineers at a top-ranking national university.It covers the educational philosophy behind the course, how it was designed, and the results of teaching it.The core idea was to use the natural fascination of space travel as a vehicle to help non-engineering students learn basic engineering principles and have fun doing it.The course was interdisciplinary, including lectures on relevant science, literature, and history, as well as on rockets, orbits, launches, re-entries, spacecraft subsystems, and human factors.The focus was on what would be needed for routine interplanetary and interstellar manned spaceflight, but we also covered the important considerations for current space operations.The intent was that at the end, the students would not be in a position to start designing a space ship, but they would understand why they are designed the way they are.The author found that this course was excellent for its purpose.It excited interest in students otherwise uninterested in engineering.The variety of topics demonstrated a wide selection of engineering methods and concepts, and also provided variety and kept interest alive.Weekly computer labs used orbit simulations that provided beautiful and absorbing visualizations, and also gave experience in mission design.As a final integrative experience, teams of students quantitatively evaluated space travel proposals and presented their results to the rest of the class.The students enjoyed the class and came out of it with a much more sophisticated understanding of space flight and of engineering in general.Reservations and difficulties include: finding qualified lecturers for the diverse set of topics; integrating their presentations into a coherent whole; and a lingering question how well such a course would work with a less gifted set of students.