Expert: Paul Soderman - 11/2/2011

Question
Sir,

You are the fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Could you please tell me the procedure to be a fellow of AIAA? Does the AIAA allow foreign national to be its member.

I am preparing for my Masters degree in Aerospace/Aeronautical. I am interested in the Space systems, primarily in satellite launch, guidance and control. But again, this is a very limited field. Could you suggest specialization related to it?

Answer
Saurav
The AIAA membership levels including Fellow are described here:  http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=183. Apparently, a member can apply or be nominated for a membership level.  How that is awarded is not clear to me; you can contact the AIAA for more information.  I believe AIAA is an international organization and has members from all over the world.

I don't know enough about space systems to answer your question definitively.  I imagine that if you got a job in your field of satellite launch, guidance and control you would find many specialized technologies that would be particular to each project.  In other words, you would specialize on things on the job. At the Masters level you will be learning the basic physics of flight in air and space. You can choose a general direction of study, but there is not much specialization to be done at that level.
Paul