The Materials Division in the Aerospace Technology Directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-Lewis Research Center has a distinguished history of contributions to advanced materials research and development. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, the Lewis Research Center was originally built for aircraft piston engine research during World War II as a part of NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. After the war, with its need for immediate engineering solutions ended, attention at Lewis turned to a variety of more fundamental research problems. As early as the 1950s, a portion of the experimental effort at Lewis sought new materials to withstand the extremely high temperatures within turbojet engines. The needs for materials to withstand ever more severe temperature/environment extremes continue, and recognition of these needs, in part, motivates the current materials research effort at NASA-Lewis. The Materials Division structure reflects the strengths as well as the diversity of research areas being investigated. Each of the eight branches making up the Materials Division is briefly sketched below.

The Microgravity Materials Science Laboratory is a unique facility with the purpose of allowing industry, university, and government researchers to prepare for materials processing experiments to be done in the “microgravity” environment aboard the Space Shuttle.