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AE Careers

Welcome to Civil Air Patrol's (CAP) Aerospace Education (AE) aerospace careers knowledge program. This program promotes and supports aerospace career awareness as an AE tool.  It focuses on providing insights into aerospace careers, the required education needed and employment opportunities for CAP cadets, senior members (SMs), and teacher members. This Aviation Related Careers program should be viewed as a follow-on program to expand and enhance CAP’s Aerospace Dimensions, Spacecraft Module-6, and Aerospace: the Journey of Flight, Chapter 17, Aerospace Careers and Training.

The term aerospace is often misunderstood. Some think it is an area where spacecraft orbit. Aerospace is actually a compression of aeronautics (the science of flight within Earth's atmosphere) and space flight (the movement of a vehicle beyond the atmosphere). Aerospace embraces the full spectrum of flight, and the aerospace industry that manufactures the components and equipment for things that fly.

To paraphrase Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on line, Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Typically the term is used to refer to the Aerospace industry, which researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through air and space. The aerospace field is diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. (Note that aerospace is not the same as airspace, which is a term, used to describe the physical air space directly above a location on the ground). Aerospace is the area consisting of atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Aerospace science deals with researches, designs, manufactures, operations, maintenance of vehicles moving through air and space, such as aircraft and spacecraft.

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