On Monday, February 16th, the Discovery Science Center will celebrate Aerospace
Engineering Day, a day dedicated to exploring the science behind flight and space
exploration. You’ve probably heard the term used before, but what exactly does aerospace engineering mean?
I’m Nicolas Tiedemann from Sacred Heart University’s Discovery Science Center and
Planetarium in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and you’re listening to Discovery Deep Dive.
When you think about airplanes, rockets, or satellites, you’re thinking about an exciting field of science called aerospace engineering. Aerospace engineering is all about designing and building machines that fly—whether that’s through Earth’s atmosphere or all the way out into space.
This field is made up of two main branches. The first is aeronautical engineering, which
focuses on aircraft that fly within the Earth’s atmosphere. Aeronautical engineers study the four forces that act on an airplane: lift, weight, thrust, and drag. Humans have dreamed of flying for most of recorded history, but aeronautical engineering truly took off in the 1910s, as airplanes rapidly developed during World War I.
The second branch is astronautical engineering, which focuses on designing spacecraft that travel beyond Earth’s atmosphere. This field grew during the Cold War, when the space race pushed engineers to solve big challenges—like how to launch spacecraft into orbit and safely bring astronauts back home.
Today, aerospace engineering is more important than ever. It plays a role in how we travel, how we track weather and natural disasters, and even how our phones, GPS, and emergency services stay connected—often in ways we don’t even realize.
On Monday, February 16 th, the Discovery Science Center will highlight this exciting field
during Aerospace Engineering Day.
