The origin of aerospace engineering can be traced back to the aviation pioneers

around the late 19th to early 20th centuries, although the work of Sir George
Cayley dates from the last decade of the 18th to mid-19th century. One of the
most important people in the history of aeronautics,
[5]
Cayley was a pioneer in
aeronautical engineering
[6]
and is credited as the first person to separate the
forces of lift and drag, which are in effect on any flight vehicle.
[7]
Early knowledge
of aeronautical engineering was largely empirical with some concepts and skills
imported from other branches of engineering.
[8]
Scientists understood some key
elements of aerospace engineering, like fluid dynamics, in the 18th century.
Many years later after the successful flights by the Wright brothers, the 1910s
saw the development of aeronautical engineering through the design of World
War I military aircraft.
The first definition of aerospace engineering appeared in February 1958.
[2]
The
definition considered the Earth's atmosphere and the outer space as a single
realm, thereby encompassing both aircraft (aero) and spacecraft (space) under a
newly coined word aerospace. In response to the USSR launching the first
satellite, Sputnik into space on October 4, 1957, U.S. aerospace engineers
launched the first American satellite on January 31, 1958. The National
Aeronautics and Space Administration was founded in 1958 as a response to the
Cold War.
[9]