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Civil engineers can help make Mars a second home for humanity

Image courtesy of JPL/NASA

Topics Column Media

Space Exploration & Colonies

Mining technologies dig up resources for life on the moon

Reimagined drills and vacuums could provide astronauts with water, oxygen, and elements for fuel.

Photograph shows a compass needle pointing toward the word “future.”

Infrastructure Policy & Planning

A strong foundation for the future

The 2025 Annual Report details ASCE’s key operational and financial successes.

A man wearing a blue and black checkered button-down shirt wears a black augmented reality headset. In the background is a blue and white sketch.

Structural Health Monitoring

Augmented reality integrates into structural design, inspection

The tech can be used to verify structural integrity among other uses.

An up-close view of a small, rain-filled pothole on a street. In the blurred background is a line of cars parked on a curb.

Data Management

A new AI-powered tool could speed up road assessments

There are four images on the picture. The first shows a crumpled piece of pager. The second the crumpled paper transformed into another shape. The third shows a swan, and the fourth shows the bird taking flight. These images represent evolution, transformation, innovation, and creativity.

Career Development

Uniting the infrastructure community at ASCE2027

Photo by Sara Kurig on Unsplash

Career Development

Imperfection can be a powerful engineering tool

More from the magazine

Four students wearing yellow safety vests, black sunglasses, and white hard hats smile into a ridged tunnel.

How to build a successful internship program

It involves patience, well-executed strategies, and plenty of fun.

A rendering from a street-level view of a high-rise building with brown textured walls and differently shaped cutouts.

Albanian capital site of dynamic urban, mixed-use tower

The city’s renewal plan encourages vertical growth and sustainable design.

A blue commercial truck crosses a steel bridge. Below the bridge is water.

Engineers, volunteers converge to restore local access to flood victims

Resilient bridge design is on display as teams rebuild private bridges destroyed...

A blurred image of a six-ton bronze bell that hangs in a park, surrounded by brick buildings. A red bow is added over the image.

A piece of American history is home in Philadelphia

The Bicentennial Bell, a gift from England, hangs in a renovated garden.

From the archives

Colorized postcard shows the roadway leading to the entrance of a tunnel. The entrance is at the base of a mountain. There are fall-colored leaves on the trees.

‘America’s First Superhighway’ connected major Pennsylvania cities

The original stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike set a new standard for roads.

Photo shows a lake and in the background are autumnal-colored tress and a small mountain.

An inverted siphon brought water to 1800s Nevada boomtowns

The Marlette Lake Water System made mining for precious metals feasible.

Arched bridge set amid the foliage.

Spanning the gap over Oregon’s Coos Bay

The bridge, which is part of the Oregon Coast Highway, is known...

Sepia-toned photo shows a cable-stayed bridge that spans a body of water. Cars are on the bridge.

Engineers and historians share their thoughts on their favorite structures

From tunnels to bridges, find out what inspires these individuals.

Sepia-toned photograph shows a tunnel being built with its timber supports.

San Francisco’s hidden engineering feat: How a tunnel helped rebuild a city

Building the sewer required innovative technologies.

Photograph shows a multiple-arch dam set amidst trees and hills.

The Mountain Dell Dam in Salt Lake City turned around an engineer’s career

Building it helped John S. Eastwood prove an engineering concept — and himself.

Photograph of a long concrete bridge over water that has many arches.

Pennsylvania’s Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge has endured for 95 years

It was once the world’s longest multiple-arch reinforced-concrete highway bridge.

Image shows a four-lane parkway. Autumn-colored trees dot the landscape in the background.

New York City parkway showcased beautiful, nature-like leisure spaces

The Bronx River Parkway provided a model for future traffic development.

Image shows a rooftop facility consisting of a multistory building, two domed structures, and housing. A road leads to the top of the mountain.

San Jose’s Lick Observatory took telescopes to new heights

Getting the main refracting telescope to the facility was an uphill battle.

Photo shows a steel bridge with concrete piers. The bridge spans a river.

Huey P. Long Bridge in New Orleans solved a big transportation problem

Completed in December 1935, the bridge combines a highway and railroad tracks.

Long reads that dig deep

The stone facade of a multistory mansion is shown. There are flowers on the trees and steps leading down to beautiful green grass.

The Frick Collection in New York City underwent a masterful renovation

Creative structural solutions and an understanding of archaic structural systems seamlessly integrated...

Man checks his computer while standing among power transmission lines.

The challenges of repairing aging, active substation foundations

Two case studies illustrate how this was done: careful design and early...

Transmission towers and wires stretch across the land, including one large prominent tower.

Steel piles replace concrete for electrical infrastructure foundations

The benefits of steel pile foundations make them an attractive alternative.

A pond, surrounded by houses and trees, is shown with marshy planted areas marked off by stakes and strings.

Hydraulic ‘memory’ guides New York City’s Bluebelt program

New York City’s Bluebelt projects work with how water naturally wants to flow.