Trust_in_Thrust

Actually I don't like the term "scientist" that much, I prefer calling myself rocket engineer, but of course it slips out sometimes.

My favorite joke:

Whats a rocket engineer? - Someone with his feet firmly on the ground, his head in space and his hands in the taxpayers pockets.

No, we don't dream that far in my department. We are looking into technologies that might fly on Ariane 6 or in spaceplanes. We try to take avaliable technologies and raise their TRL from 3 to 6. Those kinds of thoughts use TRL technologies of about 1 or 2.

Well, energy is a big factor as the air resistance rises exponentially with the speed. You need big engines and a lot of fuel.

Then the market needs to be right for this kind of plane. At the moment the market is more focused on fuel consumption, luxury and price per passenger per mile. I was quite surprised when I heard the A350 the first time, it's pretty quiet.

A love of engineering and some luck.

It can be quite tough during studies, we had lots more fluid dynamics and thermodynamics than other engineers. Once you get the hang of those two it's fairly easy. It gets really easy once you get a job.

Yes, yes I did :D

I work on the thrust chamber and the technologies that go with it.

Fault-free is not so important at our level, no one gets hurt if a test bench blows up, it's just money. We rather try to test to the limits than not know where the line is