During the heat of the space race in the 1960's, NASA decided it needed a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules.

After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of $1 million. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth.

The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.

The great mathematician John Von Neumann was consulted by a group who was building a rocket ship to send into outer space. When he saw the incomplete structure, he asked, "Where did you get the plans for this ship?"
He was told, "We have our own staff of engineers."
He disdainfully replied: "Engineers! Why, I have complete sewn up the whole mathematical theory of rocketry. See my paper of 1952."

Well, the group consulted the 1952 paper, completely scrapped their 10 million dollar structure, and rebuilt the rocket exactly according to Von Neumann's plans. The minute they launched it, the entire structure blew up. They angrily called Von Neumann back and said: "We followed your instructions to the letter. Yet when we started it, it blew up! Why?"
Von Neumann replied, "Ah, yes; that is technically known as the blow-up problem - I treated that in my paper of 1954."

An engineering student is walking along when a fellow student arrives on a new bicycle. Impressed, he asks, "Where did you got this beautiful bicycle?"

"Well," the second engineering student says, "A couple of days ago I was just walking along when this georgeous blonde pulls up, hops off the bike, rips off all her clothes, and says 'take what you want'."

The other engineering student nods and says "Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Three freshman engineering students were sitting around talking between classes, when one brought up the question of who designed the human body.

One of the students insisted that the human body must have been designed by an electrical engineer because of the perfection of the nerves and synapses.

Another disagreed, and exclaimed that it had to have been a mechanical engineer who designed the human body. The system of levers and pullies is ingeniuos.

"No," the third student said "your both wrong. The human body was designed by an architect. Who else but an architect would have put a toxic waste line through a recreation area?"