Astronautics

The term astronautics (originally astronautique in French) was coined in the 1920s by J.-H. Rosny, president of the Goncourt academy, in analogy with aeronautics.

Space launch vehicles must withstand titanic forces, while satellites can experience huge variations in temperature in very brief periods.

The early history of astronautics is theoretical: the fundamental mathematics of space travel was established by Isaac Newton in his 1687 treatise Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

[6] Other mathematicians, such as Swiss Leonhard Euler and Franco-Italian Joseph Louis Lagrange also made essential contributions in the 18th and 19th centuries.

By the early 1920s, Robert H. Goddard was developing liquid-propellant rockets, which would in a few brief decades become a critical component in the designs of such famous rockets as the V-2 and Saturn V. The Prix d'Astronautique (Astronautics Prize) awarded by the Société astronomique de France, the French astronomical society, was the first prize on this subject.

Although many regard astronautics itself as a rather specialized subject, engineers and scientists working in this area must be knowledgeable in many distinct fields.