To this day I still remember watching the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster – I was just five years old. Why at such a young age was it burned into my memory? Perhaps because the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe, was onboard the shuttle… perhaps because of the news coverage…perhaps because initially even the brightest minds didn’t understand what happened.
But I truly feel that the Challenger made me passionate about process safety and to engineer systems to hopefully keep disasters such as these from occurring.
While researching my next Halley Harper book about space I ran across this quote – “ad astra per aspera” – through hardships to the stars. I can’t think of a more beautiful way to pay tribute to Christa McAuliffe and the fallen Challenger astronauts carrying on the mission to reach the stars.
And that is what aerospace engineers do…
What is an aerospace engineer?
Aerospace engineers design and test spacecraft, aircraft, and satellites and evaluate the aerodynamics of these systems to meet customer requirements for space exploration, national defense, and communication. .
Aerospace Engineering for kids: This is one of our favorite aerospace engineering STEM challenges that I recently did with a Girl Scout Troop for their STEM badge. The goal of the challenge is to design and test a spacecraft to land on Mars!
Leave a Reply