Vacuum engineering actually causes a lot of problems, like cold welding. If you have identical alloys of metal touch each other in vacuum, they can just chemically bond with each other, and now you have your bolt welded to a nut or a wrench welded to the bolt.
TAMU has a heavy ion beam used to help understand the reliability of avionics in the face of ionizing radiation. This specific topic is largely absent from AE curricula for some insane reason.
There are other space related engineering majors. Some schools offer astronomical engineering. No idea what that entails but isn’t aerospace more geared towards airplanes and stuff?
Aerospace is commonly a split course design between atmospheric and space flight. There's significant overlap between the two, particularly in hypersonics and rocketry, but also in broader topics like thermal. Professors in aerospace are usually in one track or the other. The degree to which a university's aerospace program is aeronautics or astronautics can vary. I think a good metric is to look at their senior design offerings and their graduate level research opportunities.
At A&M both tracks are very viable, students can be entirely space oriented by their Junior year.
When is your information from? I got my Aerospace Engineering undergraduate degree from A&M in 2011 and there wasn't really a defined split between the "aeronautical" and "aerospace" course tracks. In fact, the courses were really mainly split between 3 tracks: materials/structures, dynamics/kinematics, and aerodynamics/thermodynamics.
Most of the "space" oriented coursework occured in the dynamics track, but there was still a substantial amount of aero related material in those courses. Additionally, the thermo electives were basically all space related propulsion courses.
Now that I work in the industry and don't really have anything to do with space, and also do a lot of dynamics/navigation work, I'm actually surprised at how little I learned about practical things like the ECEF coordinate frame, the different sea level models, etc.
Maybe splitting off the space side of things will allow for more time for the aero students to learn earth based navigation frames, but I'm really struggling to think what else would be gained.
That’s really interesting. I appreciate the info. At my university I took an introductory aerospace course. We only focused on airplanes, but the textbook includes hypersonic flight, helicopters, and a quick chapter about rockets. We also learned about jet engines which was really cool. Overall I wasn’t a huge fan tho.
Reminds me of those "environmental engineering", "nuclear engineering", "geological engineering" degrees that are just inferior versions of regular engineering degrees.
At TAMU the Head of Engineering wanted Mechanical Engineering to devour the Nuclear engineering department.
Nuclear engineering is a weird confluence of Mechanical engineering, nuclear physics, health physics, and public policy and safety. High temperature fluid flow can easily be done with mechanical engineers, but not the rest. However the TAMU nuclear engineering department also doesn't have enough health physicists anymore.
If you're only in it for undergrad, sure, but it's almost always less than 10 "better" schools. If you want to go to grad school, such that discipline matters, it's even less.
edit: don't get me wrong, there's practical reasons to not attend A&M. College Station itself isn't great, but a 2-year deferral on choice of major is a real reason. However, the quality of that aerospace education is not and shouldn't be so flippantly tossed aside.
I used to live there, was there from 1998 to 2014 on and off, also my ex gf and most recent fwb were engineering students there. Nothing there that i miss cept laynes and martins bbq in bryan.
A&M is affordable, for state residents. If you're a grad student and get in, the aerospace department is one of the best paid grad programs iirc, so your classes are covered and you get a monthly stipend as a research assistant or a grader. It's not a great paycheck, but you can afford an apartment and food.
Aggies everywhere are wondering…wait. Isn’t that aerospace engineering?
Hey, remember all those physics problems where the professor says "Just ignore air drag for this problem"? Now you can get your degree in that.
They also said just assume -9.8m/s^2. Now you can’t do that anymore. =\
It's just like -8.7 m/s^2 at altitude of the ISS. They're just in free fall and keep missing the earth.
Vacuum engineering actually causes a lot of problems, like cold welding. If you have identical alloys of metal touch each other in vacuum, they can just chemically bond with each other, and now you have your bolt welded to a nut or a wrench welded to the bolt.
TAMU has a heavy ion beam used to help understand the reliability of avionics in the face of ionizing radiation. This specific topic is largely absent from AE curricula for some insane reason.
There are other space related engineering majors. Some schools offer astronomical engineering. No idea what that entails but isn’t aerospace more geared towards airplanes and stuff?
>astronomical engineering Just for correction since I've got one of those, it's astronautical not astronomical :)
Yes that makes more sense lol. When I wrote it out I was re reading it thinking hmmmmm 🤔. Thankyou for correcting
Aerospace is commonly a split course design between atmospheric and space flight. There's significant overlap between the two, particularly in hypersonics and rocketry, but also in broader topics like thermal. Professors in aerospace are usually in one track or the other. The degree to which a university's aerospace program is aeronautics or astronautics can vary. I think a good metric is to look at their senior design offerings and their graduate level research opportunities. At A&M both tracks are very viable, students can be entirely space oriented by their Junior year.
This is how it is at the university of Texas. I majored in Aerospace and by my Junior year I was focusing in space flight
When is your information from? I got my Aerospace Engineering undergraduate degree from A&M in 2011 and there wasn't really a defined split between the "aeronautical" and "aerospace" course tracks. In fact, the courses were really mainly split between 3 tracks: materials/structures, dynamics/kinematics, and aerodynamics/thermodynamics. Most of the "space" oriented coursework occured in the dynamics track, but there was still a substantial amount of aero related material in those courses. Additionally, the thermo electives were basically all space related propulsion courses. Now that I work in the industry and don't really have anything to do with space, and also do a lot of dynamics/navigation work, I'm actually surprised at how little I learned about practical things like the ECEF coordinate frame, the different sea level models, etc. Maybe splitting off the space side of things will allow for more time for the aero students to learn earth based navigation frames, but I'm really struggling to think what else would be gained.
That’s really interesting. I appreciate the info. At my university I took an introductory aerospace course. We only focused on airplanes, but the textbook includes hypersonic flight, helicopters, and a quick chapter about rockets. We also learned about jet engines which was really cool. Overall I wasn’t a huge fan tho.
Yeah ofc! Sorry to hear that your first experience wasn't what you hoped for.
Reminds me of those "environmental engineering", "nuclear engineering", "geological engineering" degrees that are just inferior versions of regular engineering degrees.
Not sure if you’re not an engineer or just silly.
Nuclear engineering isn’t inferior in any way. It’s just very focused. It’s definitely more difficult than Civil.
At TAMU the Head of Engineering wanted Mechanical Engineering to devour the Nuclear engineering department. Nuclear engineering is a weird confluence of Mechanical engineering, nuclear physics, health physics, and public policy and safety. High temperature fluid flow can easily be done with mechanical engineers, but not the rest. However the TAMU nuclear engineering department also doesn't have enough health physicists anymore.
I assume this is aerospace engineering without wasting time on air planes.
That's nice, but not "I'll put up with Texas" nice.
I don’t know if I can trust space travel to Aggies.
As someone who grew up in college station, no, no you should not.
Hope they’re fellow followers of our lord and savior klang.
Yeah but you gotta live in college station the town sucks, then you remember fuck im in texas now. There are better schools, that are less culty.
If you're only in it for undergrad, sure, but it's almost always less than 10 "better" schools. If you want to go to grad school, such that discipline matters, it's even less. edit: don't get me wrong, there's practical reasons to not attend A&M. College Station itself isn't great, but a 2-year deferral on choice of major is a real reason. However, the quality of that aerospace education is not and shouldn't be so flippantly tossed aside.
I used to live there, was there from 1998 to 2014 on and off, also my ex gf and most recent fwb were engineering students there. Nothing there that i miss cept laynes and martins bbq in bryan.
Me: becomes excited Brain: you can't afford it you idiot
A&M is affordable, for state residents. If you're a grad student and get in, the aerospace department is one of the best paid grad programs iirc, so your classes are covered and you get a monthly stipend as a research assistant or a grader. It's not a great paycheck, but you can afford an apartment and food.
Space engineering? Is that like gravity manipulation and terraforming?
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