Keith Holsapple has been a professor in Aeronautics & Astronautics since 1965. With a background in structures, engineering mechanics and numerical methods, his research interests are now focused on hypervelocity impacts and material and numerical modeling.

A primary application is to applications in the planetary sciences of the small bodies of the solar system. His recent studies include the definition of the material behavior of those bodies, and models to describe those in computer studies. He has formulated and solved the problem of the equilibrium shapes, spins and tidal disruptions of solid asteroid bodies using the models of soil and rock mechanics, generalizing the well-known and classical fluid models of Maclaurin, Jacobi, Roche and others. He has been active in the studies of mitigation methods for Earth-threatening asteroids, has presented talks at various AIAA and NASA sponsored meetings and has performed code calculations of the mitigation of threatening asteroid and comets by impacts and by nuclear weapons.