A Design for Inspiring Students with Near-Space Exploration

The prevalence of overseas success in engineering education represents a significant threat to the United States. Once the dominant force in advancing technology, the U.S. is seeing significant amounts of research and development work moving overseas. U.S. competitiveness and increased productivity requires demand for high-value-added products (Porter & Rivkin, 2012) such as those designed and developed by those with advanced training in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines. The U.S. economy, thus, depends on the production of skilled scientists and engineers--not just to sustain American leadership in science, but to sustain its national economy.