With the support of alumni, industry, and the state, additional engineering faculty members were hired and research was emphasized along with instruction. In 1960, the Army Guided Missile Agency awarded a contract for special studies to the Aerospace Engineering Department. Under this contract, Branimir D. Djordjevic, a Yugoslavian engineer and military pilot who defected at the end of WW II, first developed instructional manuals for civilian Army engineers. During the next several years, Djordjevic wrote a seven-volume report on that covering most areas of aerodynamics and flight dynamics and a condensed handbook version of the report. Fred Martin and another new faculty member, James O. Nichols, as well as several graduate students, worked with Djordjevic. Djordjevic was of the European school and hence had amazing handwriting. He utilized colored chalk expertly and notes worthy of his lectures required a good set of colored pencils if the numerous axis systems of stability and control were to be appropriately identified.
By 1962, the aerospace engineering curriculum included more physics, mathematics, an introductory course in astronautics, boundary layer theory, gas dynamics and space propulsion systems.18 Due to the demand for engineers with advanced degrees, especially at Redstone Arsenal, the Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering was approved in 1961.
Funding for Auburn Research Foundation projects in the School of Engineering increased from about $35,000 in 1957 to more than $320,000 in 1961 and institutionally sponsored research was at the $100,000 level. Sherling received a National Science Foundation grant in 1962 to fund the development of a hypersonic, "hot shot," tunnel. Martin was principal investigator on a $60,000 Air Force contract to investigate atmospheric re-entry trajectories. Djordjevic was an associate investigator and Margaret Baskerville, a professor in the Department of Mathematics, was a consultant. After completing the project, Martin returned to VPI in 1965 to earn a Ph.D. in a related area. He returned in 1966.
The Master of Science program produced a number of graduates who later earned
Ph.D.'s. and entered academia. Examples are Jewel B. Barlow, now a professor at
the University of Maryland and John E. Burkhalter, W. A. Foster, Jr. and the author,
now professors at Auburn.
During the early 1960's, astrodynamics was a new subject area. Although an undergraduate course in "astro" was taught in the AE department, graduate students in engineering, physics, and mathematics learned much of the classical methods of celestial mechanics, and the new area of satellites attitude dynamics, from a mathematics professor, Philip M. Fitzpatrick. The author's love for the subject of astrodynamics is due largely to Fitzpatrick and his challenging sequence of courses that covered (very precisely!) the gamut from the dynamics of particles to the two-body problem to Lagrange's planetary equations to the application of Hamilton-Jacobi theory to satellite attitude dynamics problems.
Kenneth E. Harwell, a Cal Tech graduate (M.S. and Ph.D.) came to Auburn in 1963. One of his assignments was to lead the development of a doctoral program in aerospace engineering. A University of Alabama graduate (as was James O. Nichols), Harwell still worked hard at Auburn to develop not only the Ph.D. program, but also a world-class gas dynamics laboratory. Harwell's first Ph.D. student and the program's first graduate was Dwayne McCay, formerly a NASA engineer and manager and currently Vice- President for Research at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Harwell taught the author a lot more about gas dynamics and space propulsion than he can now recall.
With the expansion of the U. S. space program, Auburn's aerospace engineering program grew in terms of students and research. New faculty positions were funded and the subject of propulsion was one of the "hottest." Richard H. Sforzini was invited to come to Auburn as a Visiting Professor in 1966 after seven years with Thiokol Chemical Corporation. As Director of Engineering at Thiokol's Space Booster Division, Sforzini had led the development of the world's first three million pound thrust solid-propellant rocket motor ("solid rocket motor").25 Prior to his work at Thiokol, Sforzini was a U. S. Army officer whose assignments included ordnance field maintenance and instruction at the U. S. Military Academy, and study that lead to the degree of Mechanical Engineer from MIT. Interestingly, the Army required him to specialize in automatic control.
Sforzini became a permanent faculty member after one year and remained on the faculty for an additional twenty years. He developed and taught propulsion courses and conducted research for the U.S. Army and NASA. The research that Sforzini and his graduate students did for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center included the development of models and simulations of the internal ballistics of the solid rocket boosters for the Space Transportation System ("Space Shuttle"). A very important consideration in the successful use of the solid rocket boosters was the prediction of the degree of thrust difference in the two boosters, which, of course, would produce a yawing moment on the launch configuration. Sforzini was an excellent instructor who taught special extension courses for NASA and the U. S. Air Force and graduate courses in the Video-Based Instructional Engineering Outreach Program instituted at Auburn in 1984.
One of Sforzini's co-workers in solid rocket propulsion research was W. A. Foster, Jr., the second Ph.D. produced by the AE department. Foster, who is now a professor in the department, did his graduate work in structural dynamics under Malcolm A. Cutchins. However, in working with Sforzini he became well versed in solid rocket propulsion also. One of Sforzini's many students was Walt Woltosz, who later developed computer software for the handicapped including British astrophysicist Steven Hawking and pre-school children.
Cutchins started his career at Auburn in 1967. Noted for his innovative teaching, he developed and taught many courses in structural dynamics and, in the latter years simulation. His students undoubtedly remember his multiple-choice exams, the correct answers of which would produce resultant answers like "War Eagle" (the Auburn battle cry). During the early 1960's, the number of hours in the aerospace engineering curriculum was reduced from 240 to 228 by requiring calculus in high school and reducing the credit for some courses from five to four quarter hours. In 1969, the number of credit hours was reduced again to 208 by rewriting syllabi and changing the credit for many undergraduate courses from five or four hours to three hours. These changes were supposed to provide students with more time between classes to read and do other assignments. However, they also resulted in many students taking five or six major courses at the same time instead of three of four five-hour courses. Reducing the number of hours also involved dropping engineering drawing and labs such as machine tool and foundry. Thus, much of the technology content was removed from the curriculum. It was assumed that students had taken engineering drawing in high school or could learn computer assisted design (CAD) software on their own.
The enrollments in both aerospace engineering and aviation management grew during this time. The aerospace engineering enrollment was around 200, exclusive of freshmen. Students worked hard to stay in school, driven by both their career goals and the alternative of being drafted. Two years of ROTC were mandatory and the advanced program was an option many chose.
Djordjevic, died in 1967 due to complications following surgery. This was a great loss to the department and the author, who had been one of his graduate students.
