This is a question I hear pretty often – since my passions are in aerospace, and more specifically propulsion. So why nuclear engineering for graduate school?
I think it can be summed up in one phrase: There’s more than one way to eat a Reese’s.
I am of the opinion that today’s problems in aerospace (propulsion, at least) need to be solved using the new technologies and points of view developed in other fields. The reason nuclear is appealing is because it gives insight into the real action of where everything is happening, whether it is combustion or electric propulsion – at the particle level. We can only do so much flow mixing, but combustion itself is a chemical/molecular process. I’m trying to attack the problem at that level, combined with all the other advances in flow mixing/combustion. Working on rocket engines would be a big plus, because any improvements in combustion really make the big difference there. You fly at all regimes, from atmospheric pressure to vacuum, you travel at a very wide range of speeds in a short span of time. No better place to make headway, I say. But I don’t discriminate, I am a proponent of all propulsion systems from cold gas to warp speed.
Through this past year I’ve gained an understanding of diffusion, particle motion, plasmas (flame in combustion is a plasma, as is the discharge from electric thrusters), and I feel NucE has made me a stronger engineer, and now I can work on chemical and electric propulsion with confidence and with something unique to contribute. (NucE also has given me very useful insight on power systems for spacecraft that I hope to be able to contribute in the future in industry or academia – but that’ll be another post).
I only have one objective: To make rockets and planes fly higher, faster, and farther. Nuclear engineering lets me do that on levels that Aero began to scratch the surface of. I now combine both disciplines to come up with the projects I have, or be able to contribute to the projects that I do. I’m an aerospace engines guy – if it makes something go faster, I want to know it inside and out and be able to work on it.