Ethical Mechanical Engineering

Know What You Are Making And For Whom

There are a lot of ethical considerations that a  mechanical engineer has to make when designing the product. Not only does the engineer have to know who the target audience is but they must consider the safety of the people along with the user of said product. Failure to do so can result in harm or, worst case death for the people around them when using the product and a pricey legal battle that would harm the company's image and possibly have your engineering license taken away.

Code Of Ethics Engineers Follow

Every engineer has to abide by a code of ethics when they first being. looking online we can find that a website that contains a code of ethics that engineers have to follow besides the ones that are set by the company they work for and rules set by law. The NSPE or the National Society of Professional Engineers has a list of code that all engineers from all spectrum must follow(last visited on October 3, 2017). I will just give the short list below.

Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:

1. Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
2. Perform services only in areas of their competence.
3. Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
5. Avoid deceptive acts.
6. Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession.

As a mechanical engineer I would like to work for a company that has to deal with space so I would consider doing something along the lines of creating parts for spacecrafts or work directly with the organizations that are trying to go out into space like Spacex or NASA. While space exploration is a goal that most people want to see happen withing their lifetime, there are complications that can happen along the way which can cause total failure of the mission and the life of people participating. These accidents can stem from overlooking small faults within the overall system. 

Measure Twice Cut Once

In October 1, 1999 JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) came under fire along with another company named Lockheed. Both organizations is under investigation about what happened to a $125 million dollar satellite that was sent straight into Mars surface due to calculation error. The calculation error was one in which the spacecraft was designed and created in imperial units while JPL used metric when sending the spacecraft on its flight which caused the whole satellite to go out of orbit. Lockheed said that if JPL wanted it to be metric it should have specified and not only that from the time the spacecraft was finished and sent to JPL to launch there was a 9 month gap where no one from JPL or NASA found the computational error.

Small Things Causes Big Problem

Some failures can cause losses in the millions while others can cause the loss of lives. It is up to the engineers to make sure that everything is checked properly and if there is a problem with, in this case a shuttle, it should be brought up to the highest authority. If the highest authority does not respond and instead blows you off then it is up to you to "whistle blow" so that no one gets hurt.

The Challenger is a space craft that exploded 73 seconds into its flight killing 7 astronauts one of which was a high school teacher. The explosion of the Challenger was due to a seal on one of the boosters on the rocket not being able to seal properly in the cold. The day of the rocket launch was one of the coldest days and could cause a serious issue and it did. Even when engineers had data that supported the claim that the launch should be postponed for a day or two got denied by NASA. As such one of the engineers that tried argued for a change of date for the launch had to watch in the command center as the rocket exploded killing all 7 of the passengers. The engineers name was Bob Ebeling and 30 years after the failure of Challenger he keeps recalling the past event in which he said he could have done more. This all ties back to the NSPE which states that first and foremost we have to put is the welfare, health, and safety of the people first even if it means losing your job or potentially being called a "whistle blower".

Success

In my job as a mechanical engineer I would have to make the tough choice in designing the parts needed by vehicles or rockets or anything and make sure that everything that is designed follows the code that is put forth by law and to make sure that ethically it will not harm the public in anyway.