Aerospace Engineering: An Overview

Of all the fields encompassing the practice of engineering, perhaps the most exciting in terms of future possibility is aerospace engineering. Known originally as aeronautical engineering and more popularly as ''rocket science,'' aerospace engineering is concerned primarily with the development and design of aircraft and spacecraft. With the rapid advancement in flight technology over the last few decades, the outlook for aerospace engineering is replete with many possibilities, including larger and more efficient commercial aircrafts and even more detailed probing into the environment of Mars, where we have only scratched the surface.

One of the primary concerns of aerospace engineering is the development of aircraft that can withstand extreme physical and environmental conditions, including those which vary widely from the natural conditions on Earth. Extreme heat and cold, atmospheric pressures, and the difference in gravitational pull are only a few of the many considerations which aerospace engineers must contend with. They must also deal specifically with equipping vehicles for sustaining life inside them. One of the reasons NASA has yet to send a manned mission to Mars is that technology has not yet produced a viable contained environment which can sustain human life long enough during space travel from Earth to Mars.

To successfully produce flight vehicles which can travel safely, both in and outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, aerospace engineers must be experts in a variety of scientific and technological disciplines, including aerodynamics, avionics (aviation electronics), materials science, and air and spacecraft propulsion. These different considerations must be carefully and expertly combined to achieve full vehicle viability.

Aerospace engineering also encompasses the following list of elements:

Fluid mechanics
Astrodynamics
Statics and dynamics
Mathematics
Electrotechnology
Control engineering
Aircraft structures
Solid mechanics
Aeroelasticity
Risk and reliability
Noise control
Flight test

Given the vast complexity of such processes, aerospace engineering is never the domain of one individual. Rather, it is the result of years of teamwork and cooperation between many engineers (sometimes hundreds) who combine their talents to produce a single advancement in the field. Engineering on such a vast scale is often affected by constraints of material and financial resources, which is why governments often play a vital role in the funding and recruitment of such projects.

Engineers have been famously preoccupied with the notion of human flight throughout history, the most oft-cited example being Leonardo da Vinci who was among the first to seriously contemplate the idea of powered flight machines. In fact, many of his surviving sketches are centered around the idea of flying machines that would not become a reality until many centuries later with the groundbreaking work done by Alberto Santos Dumont, Sir George Cayley, and, of course, the Wright Brothers. Santos Dumont was responsible for developing the first flying machines, and Cayley was a pioneer in the development of powered flight.

Given the breadth of the subject, aerospace engineering programs are appearing at an increasing number of universities, where they may be studied at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate level. Mechanical engineering is also a common degree sought in the pursuit of a career as an aerospace engineer.

Some of the most prominent aerospace engineering schools in the United States include:

California Institute of Technology
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Naval Postgraduate School
Stanford University
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Aerospace Engineering: An Overview