Aerospace Engineering$
Aerospace engineering is the branch of engineering that concerns aircraft, spacecraft, and related topics. Aerospace Engineering was originally known as aeronautical engineering and dealt solely with aircraft. The broader term "aerospace engineering" has superseded the former in most usage, as flight technology advanced to include craft operating outside Earth's atmosphere. In analogy with "aeronautical engineering", the branch is sometimes referred to as astronautical engineering, although this term usually only concerns craft which operate in outer space. Aerospace engineering is often informally called rocket science in popular culture. Modern flight vehicles must undergo severe conditions such as differences in atmospheric pressure and temperature, or heavy structural load applied upon vehicle components; numerous matters must be taken into account, especially during the design and manufacture of the flight vehicle. Consequently, they are usually the products of a complex synthesis of various technologies and sciences, including but not limited to aerodynamics, avionics, materials science and propulsion.
The knowledge and the process of combining these various branches of studies is collectively known as aerospace engineering. This complex characteristic keeps a single aerospace engineer from involving in the entire task; rather, aerospace engineering is conducted by a team of engineers, each specializing in their own branches of science. The development and manufacturing of a flight vehicle is basically a process to carefully balance and compromise between its abilities, performance, available technology and costs. Some people who were important in bringing up the aviated world today was the famous Alberto Santos Dumont, who came up with the first machines that were able to fly. Some of the first ideas for powered flight may have come from Leonardo da Vinci who, although he did not build any successful models, did come up with many sketches and ideas for "flying machines".
The origin of modern-day aerospace engineering can be traced back to the aviation pioneers around the late 19th century to early 20th centuries, although the work of Sir George Cayley has recently been dated as being from the last decade of the 18th century. Early knowledge of aeronautical engineering was largely empirical with some concepts and skills imported from other branches of engineering, although the early pioneers were not without theoretical background for their creations (fluid dynamics, a key branch of science related to aviation, was present from the century before). Only a decade after the successful flights by the Wright brothers, the 1920s saw extensive development of aeronautical engineering through development of World War I military aircraft. Meanwhile, research to provide fundamental background science continued by combining theoretical physics with experiments. The first definition of aerospace engineering appeared in February 1958. The definition considered the Earth's atmosphere and the outer space as a single realm, thereby encompassing both aircraft (aero) and spacecraft (space) under a newly coined word aerospace.
The basis of most of these elements lies in theoretical mathematics, such as fluid dynamics for aerodynamics or the equations of motion for flight dynamics. However, there is also a large empirical component. Historically, this empirical component was derived from testing of scale models and prototypes, either in wind tunnels or in the free atmosphere. More recently, advances in computing have enabled the use of computational fluid dynamics to simulate the behavior of fluid, reducing time and expense spent on wind-tunnel testing. Additionally, aerospace engineering addresses the integration of all components that constitute an aerospace vehicle (subsystems including power, communications, thermal control, life support, etc.) and its life cycle (design, temperature, pressure, radiation, velocity, life time), leading to extraordinary challenges and solutions specific to the domain of aerospace systems engineering. Popular culture has not been unaffected by this branch of engineering. The term "rocket scientist" is at times used to describe a person of remarkable or in the considered context higher than average intelligence.
Aerospace engineering has also been represented as the more "glittery" pinnacle of engineering. The movie Apollo 13 depicts the ground team as a group of heroes in a Hollywood fashion glorifying the intelligence and competence of white shirt and tie professionals as a sharp contrast to pop culture trends. This was later extended in more detail in the spin-off series From the Earth to the Moon. Aerospace (or aeronautical) engineering can be studied at the advanced diploma, bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. levels in aerospace engineering departments at many universities, and in mechanical engineering departments at others. A few departments offer degrees in space-focused astronautical engineering. Aerospace engineers design, develop, and test aircraft, spacecraft, and missiles, and supervise the production of these products. Those who work with aircraft are called aeronautical engineers, and those working specifically with spacecraft are astronautical engineers. Aerospace engineers develop new technologies for use in aviation, defense systems, and space exploration, often specializing in areas such as structural design, guidance, navigation and control, instrumentation and communication, or production methods.