What Should I Study if I Want to Work in Space?
The space industry is rapidly growing, with an almost overwhelming array of options to chose from.
At the SEDS Ascension conference today, a student question came up during a panel I was on: If you’re interested in a lot of different things when it comes to space, how do you pick what to focus on?
This is a great question, and one that would have helped me early in my university path in terms of selecting a major. Starting college, I knew I was obsessed with Mars, and so I went into astronomy because planets are in space. It wasn’t until the end of my junior year that I realized I should’ve majored in geology to study Mars. While I don’t regret the time I spent in astronomy—I still learned a lot of interesting and useful stuff—it would’ve definitely saved me some time and energy to have gone directly into geology!
Astronomy/astrophysics is a great option if you want to study things like planetary formation, exoplanets, stars and galaxies, black holes, and cosmology. Want to delve into the formation of the universe itself? Stay up all night doing observational astronomy at giant telescopes, sometimes in epic places like Hawaii or Chile? Calculate the orbits of asteroids zipping through the Solar System? This is the field for you.
Geology is your area of choice if you’re interested in the surface processes of any of the rocky bodies in the Solar System, like the inner planets and the moons of the outer planets. While each planet or moon has its own distinct characteristics, the basics are very similar. Understanding what things like channels, volcanoes, and impact craters look like is applicable across bodies. If the interiors of planets/moons is more your jam, then geophysics is the way to go. Geophysicists study things like magnetic fields and seismic activity to investigate the unseen interior. Magnetic field studies from the Galileo spacecraft for example are what led to the inference that Europa hosts a massive liquid water ocean beneath its icy shell.
Atmospheric science is applicable to any planet with an atmosphere, probably unsurprisingly. Weather patterns are basically fluid dynamics in action, and from what we’ve observed in our Solar System so far, the fundamental dynamics are consistent across worlds. Sometimes other planets can throw us curveballs in their weather patterns that help give us a better understanding of dynamics in general—the initially mysterious hexagon at Saturn’s north pole being a great example.
Medical science has a big role in space, with an entire field of “aerospace medicine” focused on how spaceflight affects the human body. Additionally, multiple astronauts that have flown into space are medical doctors by training, including American astronaut Scott Parazynski and Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques. Food science is also critical in keeping astronauts healthy and satisfied while eating in space. NASA’s Johnson Space Center has an entire Space Food Lab where they experiment with food prep, storage, and growth. As we prepare to send humans back to the Moon and on to Mars, we’ll definitely need to make sure that they can eat nutritious food that is also something they’d actually want to eat. Definitely don’t want a bunch of hangry astronauts stranded alone on Mars…sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Engineering is much less mysterious since it directly ties into any satellite, rover, telescope, etc., that could be used. Aerospace, mechanical, electrical, computer, optical…you can’t really go wrong in terms of picking a focus area that will make you employable in the space sector. Deciding if there’s a particular sub-system that interests you can help narrow things down, like if propulsion versus programming appeals to you. Or, if you like all the things and don’t want to hyper-specialize, systems engineering might be a good fit for you. Systems engineers are essentially the big picture thinkers who understand how all of the components that go into a spacecraft integrate and operate together.
The space industry also has many other positions that fall outside of the STEM categories but are still critical to the function of a business: Salespeople, administrative staff, accountants, communications, marketing, IT support, and more. If you have a passion for space, there’s likely some way to tie your career into the industry.
What are your space career questions or dreams? Let me know in the comments!
