1950

• The Experimental Aerodynamics Laboratory was founded by Milton J. Thompson in the Defense Research Laboratory to perform research on supersonic boundary layers at speeds five times faster than sound.

1951

• The Department of Engineering Mechanics granted its first doctoral degree to Robert Felgar.

• William H. Shutts joined the department faculty.

1952

• Dr. Eugene Ripperger joined the department faculty.

1953

• Sigma Gamma Tau, the honor society for aerospace engineering students, started a chapter at the University of Texas at Austin.

• The Container Research Laboratory (later the Structural Mechanics Research Laboratory) was established under the leadership of J. Neils Thompson.

• Joseph Dalley and Raymond Staley joined the department faculty.

1955

• NASA astronaut Alan Bean graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering. He later became the fourth man to walk on the moon as lunar module pilot on Apollo 12, man’s second lunar landing.
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• Joseph Dalley, Raymond Staley, and Dr. Vance Moyer joined the department faculty.

1958

• The Engineering Laboratories Building (later the W.R. Woolrich Laboratories) was constructed.

 1959

• The Department of Aeronautical Engineering was renamed the Department of Aerospace Engineering.

• Kenneth Rathbun and Drs. Phil Ferguson, Byron Short, and Shao Yuan joined the department faculty.