Bridging the gap between the modern Computer Science and “traditional” practices in Aerospace Engineering: Our experience with teaching the “C++ for Space Ballistics” program

Before the 1990s, Computer Science and, more generally, Information Technologies were in essence areas of Applied Mathematics, and Mathematics was universally considered the main foundation of all Engineering disciplines. In the last 30 years the situation had changed dramatically. It is nowadays a common perception among the general public and even many students and practitioners, that Mathematics, IT and Engineering have diverged, to the extent that many IT and Engineering students view Mathematics as an “unnecessary antedeluvian burden” they are obliged to pass, whereas “in modern reality, it has been completely superceded by Data Science”. Needless to say, this perception is outright wrong and is very unfortunate. The negative impact of it is the most harmful for interdisciplinary, scientifically- and computationally-intensive interdisciplinary areas, such as Quantitave Finance or Aerospace Engineering. In an attempt to rectify this problem, we implement online educational programs aimed at students from BS to PhD levels as well as industry practitioners, to provide an integrated and constructive hands-on approach to Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering. In our talk wediscuss in details one of such programs, "Modern C++ for Space Ballistics and Spacecraft Control Systems" which is on-going since October this year.