“Houston, we have a problem.” If you’ve ever thrown this phrase into your dramatic monologues, you might know that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is based in Houston, TX. Rice University is ALSO based in Houston, and they’re nationally known for their strength in STEM —and for their aeronautic engineering program, specifically.
If you’ve been following our “deep dive” series, otherwise known as “Is This School Good for That?”, you know that we’re on a mission to demystify how schools get their reputations, or, more accurately, how individual programs within larger colleges get singled out as exceptional. Some universities are household names for a reason — they’ve earned a high estimation in public perception over time — and others pack less of a punch academically, depending on the prestige of a “name brand” to lend credibility whether they have the accolades to back it up or not.
The good news, however, is this: not only are we going to impart our hard-won knowledge to keep you up to date with word on the street in higher ed, but we’ve learned the ropes precisely because we’ve been doing this for a long time. We’ve counseled many students applying to programs in aerospace engineering from start to finish. Whether you need guidance compiling a strategic college list or putting together application materials suitable for top programs, we’ve done it all. Stay tuned for the low-down on aeronautics at Rice University.
The History of Aerospace Engineering at Rice
Rice and NASA have been intertwined essentially since the agency’s inception. likes to tell it like this: “Thanks to the reputation of Rice University faculty researchers (and the canny political maneuvering of two former Rice roommates), “Houston” became the first word broadcast from the surface of the moon.” This paraphrases the story of how Houston became “Space City, USA” when it named the location of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center (called Johnson Space Center today).
They’re not overstating the relationship, either. They got as close to a DTR as you could in 1961. In a memorandum to President John. F Kennedy, then NASA Administrator James Webb announced, “Our decision is that this laboratory should be located in Houston, Texas, in close association with Rice University.” The next year, JFK himself attended Rice’s semicentennial anniversary and delivered a challenge in his speech from Rice Stadium for our country “to become the world's leading space-faring nation.”
Not even 12 months later, Rice rose to the occasion set by the government and “established the nation’s first dedicated space science department.” Since then, Rice has continued to be involved in landmark space missions. As T, “within 18 months of Kennedy’s speech, satellites built at Rice were being launched aboard U.S. rockets.” And man first walked on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin brought with them the lunar dust detector invented Rice professor Brian O’Brien. Rice professor John Freeman’s “larger self-contained ion detection experiment” also went to outer space with a subsequent Apollo mission, where it is planted on the surface to this day (those in the know may have even heard that a pennant inside its heat shield proudly plants Rice’s flag on a small section of the moon it calls its own).
The State of Aeronautics at Rice Today
Unsurprisingly, Rice faculty and students stay busy between partnering with leading aerospace institutions and commandeering their own cutting-edge research. In recent years alone:
designed by Rice’s chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) to monitor ultraviolet radiation.
a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) Fellowship to work on his project, “Multifunctional Composite Textile Materials for Advanced Spacesuits.”
was one of only nine NASA’s 2019 Early Career Faculty Award recipients, which grants him $600,000 over 3 years to “investigate novel approaches to thermal-control materials for spacecraft.”
And a Rice undergrad studying mechanical engineering, then only a sophomore, became a member of the inaugural class of Patti Grace Smith fellows, a competitive opportunity to empower Black talent in the aerospace industry.
Clearly, there’s no shortage of opportunities at Rice, and the routine accomplishments of faculty and peers foster a high-achieving and intellectually dynamic culture among mechanical engineers. Our assessment? We conclude our findings with whatever the space equivalent is of “Thundercats are go.”
If you’re looking to blast off into aerospace engineering, reach out to us for personalized guidance in applying to top STEM programs.