Today science and engineering are not very different organizational entities in most aerospace organizations. That is, aerospace engineering generally involves the Research and Development (R&D) of definable propulsion and flight systems by making improvements to gain minor performance increases, where space science generally involves the R&D (engineering) of definable instruments for detecting earth signatures (earth science) and space signatures (astrophysics/cosmology) for understanding the nature of these environments. The only difference is that aerospace engineering R&D seeks to improve upon engineering methods, where space science R&D seeks to understand what one desires to seek in order to collect and study the data received toward scientific proposes. None of this involves rocket scientist, in fact, one could say that rocket science lays lost somewhere between aerospace engineering and space science.

 

Admittedly, some aspects of the rocket scientist can be found speckled across the aerospace industry, but not as a defined discipline or profession. The age of the pure rocket scientist ended quietly decades ago amidst the ever increasing engineering management dominated aerospace communities and the ever segmentation of the science communities. A fact that has become ever so true in the face of limited funding in both sectors.

 

In 2008, the founders created the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Space, Propulsion and Energy Sciences to rejuvenate the Rocket Science discipline and profession by helping to integrate the sciences toward basic research in SPACE, PROPULSION and ENERGY SCIENCES, not only in the US, but around the world.

 

Are you a pure rocket scientist? If so, send your job description to iasspes-at-ias-spes.org.  No aerospace engineers, please.