With the Iraq war in its fifth year, technological developments have been key to American military strategy. But while many engineering undergraduates and graduate students express a distaste for direct involvement in weapons design, development of technologies with joint civilian and military applications seems much more palatable.

According to Stanford University Electrical Engineering graduate student Siddhartha Kasivajhula, the overlap in civilian and military technology is staggering enough that many engineering students cannot effectively draw the line.

“For example, I could be involved with a project involved with the design of more efficient solar panels for satellites,” Kasivajhula said, “but weapons guidance satellites will ultimately end up using solar cell technology used by commercial satellites. Technology in one context can easily translate to another.”

Stanford engineering undergraduates, especially those involved in research, highlighted how the defense industry allows commercial technology to flourish because of its funding. While some were opposed to participating directly in weapons design, they noted that commercial technologies often started out as a military technology.

“You never know when military research will become mainstream,” said Mechanical Engineering student Sunthar Premakumar ‘08. “The Internet started out as some army project, and look at how important it is now.”