Building on Success

One hundred years ago, the Wright Brothers applied to patent the design of their successful ‘airplane’, beginning an era of human dominion over the sky; the launch of the fi rst geosynchronous satellite occurred 50 years later, and the fi rst US space station ‘Skylab’ was sent into orbit just 30 years after that, allowing humans to live and work in space. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of Crick and Watson’s discovery of the structure of DNA, and the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project, which sequenced 99% of what it is to be human. The fi rst push-button phone was used 50 years ago; the fi rst call from a portable cell phone followed just 10 years later.