Technically Speaking

Last night I boarded a Boeing 777 to fly home. This is an enormous piece of machinery. As I walked off the bus and towards the plane I found myself literally in awe of how the pilots get this thing off the ground. The engine alone has to be almost 10ft - 12ft high. The wing spand is probably 40 yards. I know a little about the steel that goes into these planes. It basically has to be defect free. The same with the bolts and screws that put the pieces of sheet together. So there I was with my Blackberry texting an email in front of this airplane.

I stood there and thought while we boarded the plane:

How many engineers actually put the conception, all of the electrical, aerodynamics, and mechanical pieces together to make a plane? Is it thousands, ten thousands?

Considering that the raw materials have to be defect free, what process goes into making perfect materials for an airplane?

How do they test the longevity and effectiveness of an airline engine?

As I was holding my phone,

What kind of R&D goes into making a phone that can call anywhere in the world, get internet, get emails, and still fit in your pocket?

How were we able to shrink the size a computer in 30 years from the size of a building to the size of my hand?

If you really think about the technology that goes into a phone or a plane it is simply impressive.

And then I thought, we can make huge planes that fly 40,000 ft in the air and multi-purpose phones that fit in my hand and yet we can not figure out a way to get people in Africa clean drinking water.

With a few clicks on the internet you can find the following:

2 MILLION people die annually because of waterborne illnesses (mostly in 3rd world countries).
2 BILLION people do not have clean water in this world.
350 MILLION people in Africa are without clean drinking water. This is equivalent to the entire US not having drinking water.

Am I nuts? How is this possible? Clean water. We can fly planes and make small computers, but we can't figure out clean water?

If you could only pick one, should we be in awe of our advances or humilated at our failures?