I'll commend the added effort on this one and give it another once-over.

>Before the DC-X, nobody believed rockets could land themselves with precision and reliability.

I will have to mark this one with a big fat [citation needed]. Although I can't quite speak for the folks who worked rockets in the 90's, in principle I see little reason why seasoned experts would be inclined to think of the task as impossible. Intriguing perhaps, difficult certainly, but the problems involved in that kind of landing functionality are well-defined in the propulsion and control theory literature from which a solution must be derived.

What the DC-X provides is an important proof of concept - I see little benefit in trying to analyze how useful that design is relative to any other given one. Although, as a point perhaps of historical interest: there was a "Delta Clipper" full-size vehicle in the plans as a follow-on to the DC-X, with some rather familiar promises of low-cost access to space and large savings through reusability. Some things are just posters, some things become prototypes, and some things end up as something more - that's the reality of aerospace designs if not engineering designs in general. I do have to say that based on the studies I've seen from the 90's, shelving the Delta Clipper concept was definitely the correct decision at that time.

>At this point, reuse was likely not saving over a couple million per launch, as pre-B5 boosters were not optimized for reuse.

I would like to draw attention to a pattern of thought I've coined "the refinement fallacy." That is, the general assumption that the next version will iterate away the relatively fundamental problems with this one. Although the next version could certainly support improvements, it's easy to assume that such improvements will lead to radically different performance even when there is little evidence to support that that is the case. Bottom line: improvements and refinements do not by default resolve fundamental problems.

For the next segment, I'd like to start by collecting a couple of questionable assertions:

1.

>Musk said that reuse was 50% cheaper, however, by the end of this, it would likely be more accurate that the final pre-B5 reuse only saved up to 30%, and that was the expectation from B5.

2.

>Block 5 is the final version of Falcon 9. It is reportedly built for 10 flights with minimal refurbishment and 100 flights over its lifetime, although there is speculation that B5 will be used through 200-300 launches IF Starlink becomes a thing.

3.

>All of these help improve rapid reusability and the amount of times a booster can be used. it is likely only now, when B5 is being mass-produced (in rocket terms) and reuse is down that reuse of the booster can create cost saving with reuse being worthwhile. This is also the point where that 50% savings over making a new one can be reached, which would probably give up to 25% total cost reduction (this takes into account the costs of maintaining and using the ships and their respective equipment).

The problem with each of these claims is largely the source material: not what the average individual would describe as credible. The first and third claims seem relatively tame on their face - statements of economics and of the efficiency of a certain project. The second one is significantly more absurd - one that couples absurdly optimistic performance assumptions with associated claims of economies of scale. Generally, it's easy to make anything seem feasible if you take highly optimistic assumptions about future growth and best-case performance, and that can honestly be somewhat meaningless.

In truth, we have a credibility problem to address here. We don't have detailed financial information about a private company's business, so we have to look at the evidence we do have:

1. Significant economic benefit is claimed. It's not a bad first-order assumption to take such claims at face value, although it might not be a bad idea to have some degree of skepticism, especially if the company in question is known for hyperbole and showmanship.
   
   
2. Known financial results do not paint a particularly flattering picture. Incomplete a metric though this may be, very large and important efficiency gains would generally lead to a very healthy bottom line. This doesn't seem to really be the case at the moment.
   
   
3. Studies from other individuals external to the claimant on the viability of the approach. Although there is some contention here, the external studies largely seem to be far more reserved in their claims on economic benefit. Though individually there is some question of credibility, when many parties independently reach the same conclusion it might beg the question of, why? Although it is far from proof, multiple experts corroborating the same story do make a case.
   
   The lack of verifiable numbers, and the consistent rightward shift of the "next iteration will wave a magic wand and erase the problems" mentality is a key facet of the refinement fallacy approach to these topics. Although there is not exactly hard proof available one way or the other (which does leave lots of leeway for speculation), the partial evidence provided does provide sufficient room to warrant significant skepticism.
   
   >A common rebuttal to reuse and SpaceX making money is that ULA makes way more profits than SpaceX. While true, this statement does not take into account the lower prices that SpaceX offers compared to ULA and where that money is going.
   
   What is perhaps more meaningful here is the matter of structural profitability. Generally, more budget services do make a smaller per-unit profit than the more expensive units; the former makes up for the difference in volume. But more meaningful is the more fundamental factors: is the business, including its forward-looking development plans, funded primarily by its operating profits, or by an influx of external capital? Investment is always a staple of large capital expenditures, but there is a massive difference between supplementing a healthy business profit with some external cash for faster development and relying on that money to just keep on top of the current batch of tasks without clearly achievable milestones to turn the trend around (often depending instead on pie-in-the-sky promises of grand successes). One may ask, which do we actually see here?
   
   >Currently, SpaceX is the only launch provider with commercially viable reusable launch vehicles. But it won't be that way much further into the 2020s. Future competitors include: Blue Origin's New Glenn, ULA's Vulcan-Centuar, and possibly China and India.
   
   Launch vehicle reusability has been a long-pursued topic in well-developed space programs all over the world. That has been the case for many decades, it will continue to be the case for years to come. However, two things become quickly clear:
   
   
4. It doesn't mean that it will prove to be a value-added pursuit; they could just as well explore that option until it becomes clear that the benefits are not sufficient to implement it further.
   
   
5. It doesn't mean that the task is a priority; research and opportunities for potential improvement that may only materialize years or decades into the future are staples of the R&D core of space, but it's no guarantee that any certain approach matters sufficiently to emphasize it right now. For example - the detachable engine idea had long been theorized and explored in detail, and may even prove to be viable, but is a far lesser concern than many more immediate factors of rocket design.
   
   Bold claims about a radically different future generally are far too presumptuous, assuming a world of highly optimistic possibilities without sufficiently considering the more immediate (and generally more mundane) economic and political conditions under which they operate. Again, some things end up as just proposals or prototypes, some things become something more; what a different world we would live in if all the promises of the past decades came true. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
   
   Sources
   
   Just me, but I do have a book recommendation: Fundamentals of Astrodynamics - a fairly elementary, but highly informative, book on the principles of orbital mechanics. Great both for learning the basics at an engineering (as opposed to hobbyist) level, and as a reference if you happen to work with the stuff on a daily basis.

>I'm not sure what kinds of other heavy scientific computing you've done, but CFD is a very difficult field and takes years to understand.

CFD isn't this difficult.

On one side you have partial differential equations (PDEs) describing fluid flow. On the other side you have numerical methods used to solve those PDEs. Put the two together, implement it in code, and you get a rudimentary CFD simulation. For CS students, who typically already have knowledge of numerical methods, coding one of these basic simulations can be done within a semester's worth of focused effort. Venturing into finer, more complex domains and trying to model more advanced flow phenomenons do indeed require years of study, but a beginner -- a 3rd year CS undergrad of all people -- has no need to deal with that stuff when all they want to accomplish is to get their feet wet with the inner workings of the simplest CFD simulation.

So let's not intimidate the poor kid and not oversell the profession. A lot of people love pretending like this stuff is black magic, presumably because it promotes job security, but it just isn't. There are lots of people doing CFD that come from CS and Applied Math backgrounds instead of Engineering or Physics. They all started somewhere. So can the OP.

-------------------------------------

@ /u/AnotherBrownBike

Khan Academy Physics, Fluid Dynamics lectures are your best friend in this.

I would recommend that you start with getting a decent physical understanding of incompressible (also called divergence-free) advection-diffusion equation. This is a simple PDE that describes how particles (or other quantities like energy) are transferred inside a physical system due to the process of diffusion and advection (aka convection). Solving this equation using a numerical solution method for PDEs (such as finite volume or finite element) will allow you to practice the fundamental underpinnings of a CFD code.

Finite Volume methods are more popular in CFD than finite element methods, because they're mathematically easier for people who have a robust understanding of fluid mechanics. That's not going to be the case for you, because you're not studying fluids academically. I would recommend that you focus on finite element methods instead. These are mathematically more challenging -- using them with fluid PDEs require stabilization terms (like SUPG or GLS) to prevent the solution from oscillating. However, the application of finite element methods to fluid PDEs require essentially no knowledge of the physics behind the PDE. It's pure mathematics, and you as a CS student should be well equipped to handle this.

If you're not familiar with finite element methods for solving PDEs, I would strongly recommend starting with a Python library called FEniCS. This is a brilliant finite element solver that allows you to input the bilinear form of your partial differential equation (Google what "bilinear form" is for finite element methods) in Python and generate a solution. This will allow you to practice the mathematics of finite element methods without getting tangled up in the code implementation of the solution process. Solve the Poisson equation first, and then the advection-diffusion.

Simple solvers you might like working with:

EasyCFD -- Educational program intended to teach the basics of a "black-box" CFD solver.

CFD Python -- A Python program designed with a 12-step lesson plan to solving Navier-Stokes equations.

PyFR -- Another Python-based flow solver. Documentation is a bit sparse, so you need an understanding of how CFD works to use it. But once you have that, PyFR's open-source nature allows you to break apart an actual full CFD solver and look at its components before trying to write your own.

Useful literature you might want to check out from your campus library:

White, Fluid Mechanics and/or Cengel and Cimbala, Fluid Mechanics -- Basically the two beginner level fluid mechanics bibles, depending on who you ask. An overwhelming number of engineers out there have had one or the other as their textbook in school. They're both fantastic. Flip a coin.

Moin, Fundamentals of Engineering Numerical Analysis -- Yet another undergraduate bible, this time on numerical methods commonly used by engineers (of all types). It covers material so crucial in all scientific computing that one of my doctoral qualification examiners specifically requested that I know this book from cover to cover.

Anderson, Computational Fluid Dynamics -- Superb introductory book that covers most everything related to CFD. If you're going to buy anything in this list, buy this one.

Hughes, Finite Element Methods -- The bible on finite element methods. The book focuses on structural applications (which do not require stabilization terms) but the mathematics involved are identical regardless of the physics behind the PDE, so this is still a very useful reference.

Zienkiewicz, Taylor and Nithiarasu, Finite Element Method for Fluid Dynamics -- Great supplement to Hughes' book for anyone using FEM on fluid flow. Covers stabilized methods, starting with easy equations (like advection-diffusion) and scaling up all the way to turbulent flows (which you shouldn't bother with right now).

Anderson, Fundamentals of Aerodynamics -- Just putting this down in case you ever need to specifically learn about aerodynamic applications of fluid flow.

Anderson, Introduction to Flight -- Used nationwide as an introductory aerospace engineering book. I recommend it to everybody outside of the industry who wants to work/study in it. Superfluously covers every aspect of the discipline, from structures to propulsion, from aerodynamics to flight control, from aviation to space.

Panton, Incompressible Flow -- Often used as a graduate level book on theoretical fluid mechanics. Focused mathematical approach. Not an easy read, required some prerequisite knowledge of fluid flow (overview of the fundamentals is very brief), but it's the next logical step up when you're ready to take your fluid work further.

Why I don't give a shit about coffee machine expenses, office furniture, etc:

Firstly, and this is important, Star Citizen is an extraordinarily challenging game to write from a technical perspective (even Derek says that they can't build don't have the tech for it). Extraordinary tech requires extraordinary engineers.

There is a long history of how various companies and colleges try to attract the best and the brightest. The first company that I know of which had to attract extraordinary engineers was General Atomic after WWII, which started working on Project Orion. Remember how your parents would give you pushes on the swing to make you go higher/further? Project Orion was basically that, except you're a spaceship and the push is really a nuclear explosion. Do you think I'm kidding? I'm not. So you're detonating hundreds of the most dangerous kind of bomb known at the time with specific timing in sequence: things have to go right. Therefore, you need the best engineers to work on it.

The facilities at the General Atomic campus were extensive, featuring an enormous library in the center that was shaped to be the same size of the spaceship they were trying to build. Other details can be found in George Dyson's book, but suffice it to say that General Atomic was able to recruit many of the Project Manhattan veterans because of some of these benefits and amenities: not all decisions come down to salary.

Google is a much more recent example; like General Atomic, Google wants the best. How does Google attract and retain the best engineers? Perks are a big, and well-documented, part of that. Just look at all these articles about the perks that Google employees get: https://www.google.com/search?q=general+atomic&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=google+perks.

Colleges do the same thing to try to get the best students to attend: they have large campuses with beautiful architecture. A state-of-the-art athletic center with more racketball and squash courts than would ever be used. A program to allow you to rent Picassos to hang in your dorm room. Hell, the school I work at has a parents association whose sole job is to bring the teachers lunch/breakfast once a month. I'd have left to be closer to friends/family long ago if it weren't for this (and other similar perks).

It's really clear to me that CIG is trying to do exactly this. I'm really surprised Derek hasn't mentioned this, but they have a full kitchen in the new California studio. Producers constantly talk about how they're working to make the engineer's lives better, sometimes that involves running errands or getting dinner. The mural on the wall helps people to take pride in their work (and is beautiful besides). A nice coffee machine and elegant furniture are ways to retain the amazing employees you have. That's part of the cost of hiring the best. Can you go overboard with it? Of course. Have they? Consider that this $20,000 coffee machine is less than 0.02% of their total crowdfunded number. They can afford it. And the employees deserve it.

Welcome to the real world, Derek. You can't just throw money at people and expect them to be inspired and give you their best. And you certainly can't do it when you're paying these people less than what they would get paid at other companies, no matter how awesome your project is.

/u/another_user_name posted this list a while back. Actual aerospace textbooks are towards the bottom but you'll need a working knowledge of the prereqs first.

Non-core/Pre-reqs:

Mathematics:

Calculus.

1-4) Calculus, Stewart -- This is a very common book and I felt it was ok, but there's mixed opinions about it. Try to get a cheap, used copy.

1-4) Calculus, A New Horizon, Anton -- This is highly valued by many people, but I haven't read it.

1-4) Essential Calculus With Applications, Silverman -- Dover book.

More discussion in this reddit thread.

Linear Algebra

3) Linear Algebra and Its Applications,Lay -- I had this one in school. I think it was decent.

3) Linear Algebra, Shilov -- Dover book.

Differential Equations

4) An Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations, Coddington -- Dover book, highly reviewed on Amazon.

G) Partial Differential Equations, Evans

G) Partial Differential Equations For Scientists and Engineers, Farlow

More discussion here.

Numerical Analysis

5) Numerical Analysis, Burden and Faires

Chemistry:

1. General Chemistry, Pauling is a good, low cost choice. I'm not sure what we used in school.
   
   

   Physics:
   

   
   2-4) Physics, Cutnel -- This was highly recommended, but I've not read it.
   
   

   Programming:
   

   
   

   Introductory Programming
   

   
   Programming is becoming unavoidable as an engineering skill. I think Python is a strong introductory language that's got a lot of uses in industry.
   
   

2. Learning Python, Lutz
   
   
3. Learn Python the Hard Way, Shaw -- Gaining popularity, also free online.
   
   

   Core Curriculum:
   

   
   

   Introduction:
   

   
   

4. Introduction to Flight, Anderson
   
   

   Aerodynamics:
   

   
   

5. Introduction to Fluid Mechanics, Fox, Pritchard McDonald
   
   
6. Fundamentals of Aerodynamics, Anderson
   
   
7. Theory of Wing Sections, Abbot and von Doenhoff -- Dover book, but very good for what it is.
   
   
8. Aerodynamics for Engineers, Bertin and Cummings -- Didn't use this as the text (used Anderson instead) but it's got more on stuff like Vortex Lattice Methods.
   
   
9. Modern Compressible Flow: With Historical Perspective, Anderson
   
   
10. Computational Fluid Dynamics, Anderson
    
    

    Thermodynamics, Heat transfer and Propulsion:
    

    
    

11. Introduction to Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer, Cengel
    
    
12. Mechanics and Thermodynamics of Propulsion, Hill and Peterson
    
    

    Flight Mechanics, Stability and Control
    

    
    5+) Flight Stability and Automatic Control, Nelson
    
    5+)[Performance, Stability, Dynamics, and Control of Airplanes, Second Edition](http://www.amazon.com/Performance-Stability-Dynamics-Airplanes-Education/dp/1563475839/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315534435&sr=8-1, Pamadi) -- I gather this is better than Nelson
    
    

13. Airplane Aerodynamics and Performance, Roskam and Lan
    
    

    Engineering Mechanics and Structures:
    

    
    3-4) Engineering Mechanics: Statics and Dynamics, Hibbeler
    
    

14. Mechanics of Materials, Hibbeler
    
    
15. Mechanical Vibrations, Rao
    
    
16. Practical Stress Analysis for Design Engineers: Design & Analysis of Aerospace Vehicle Structures, Flabel
    
    6-8) Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures, Bruhn -- A good reference, never really used it as a text.
    
    
17. An Introduction to the Finite Element Method, Reddy
    
    G) Introduction to the Mechanics of a Continuous Medium, Malvern
    
    G) Fracture Mechanics, Anderson
    
    G) Mechanics of Composite Materials, Jones
    
    

    Electrical Engineering
    

    
    

18. Electrical Engineering Principles and Applications, Hambley
    
    

    Design and Optimization
    

    
    

19. Fundamentals of Aircraft and Airship Design, Nicolai and Carinchner
    
    
20. Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach, Raymer
    
    
21. Engineering Optimization: Theory and Practice, Rao
    
    

    Space Systems
    

    
    

22. Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications, Vallado
    
    
23. Introduction to Space Dynamics, Thomson -- Dover book
    
    
24. Orbital Mechanics, Prussing and Conway
    
    
25. Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, Bate, Mueller and White
    
    
26. Space Mission Analysis and Design, Wertz and Larson

If you're looking to get started, you should start with a good book like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Fluid-Dynamics-John-Anderson/dp/0070016852

That book starts out with the basics of Fluid Dynamics equations and is really very good.

Turbulence theory and turbulence modeling is a pretty advanced topic. You will first have to learn about laminar boundary layers, boundary layer equations and then about transition to turbulence, turbulent boundary layers and turbulence modeling.

This is the best book I have read on Boundary Layer theory that covers both laminar and turbulent flow:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/3540662707/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1425473580&sr=8-1&keywords=schlicting+boundary+layer&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&dpPl=1&dpID=41ZQZkmQBNL&ref=plSrch

Turbulence modeling is something you can move on to after that. I recommend this book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1928729088/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1425473660&sr=8-1&keywords=wilcox+turbulence+modeling

Wilcox goes into much detail about the nature of turbulence and the different methods that have been formulated to model this phenomenon.

Here is a book that talks about the basics of fluid dynamics that is pretty good too:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0123821002/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1425473759&sr=8-1&keywords=kundu+fluid+mechanics&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&dpPl=1&dpID=41h-Ynv4uGL&ref=plSrch


Another great resource is this set of fluid dynamics videos made a few decades ago. They are awesome and will give you a strong conceptual understanding:
http://web.mit.edu/hml/ncfmf.html

There you go. I'm sorry if I was unclear on anything. Let me know about it and I'll be glad to help you out more.

Now could you point me to some material about how you use hydrodynamics in your field? I love to learn about different fields! Thank you in advance!

Titan is Saturn's moon, and yes, its ice volcanoes are one of the coolest tectonic events in our solar system.

As far as we know, there aren't any solid diamonds at the center of anything. Diamonds are much lighter than metals and other heavy elements, and would not sink to the center of a planetoid. Perhaps some pre-supernova planets, but those wouldn't have any of the heavy elements necessary to support life. Once we are traveling between stars, it's the biogenetic substances--like water and unrefined carbon--that will be the most valuable and useful to mine. With space colonization it becomes a matter of sustaining the continuing expansion of life, not space ships, that is most important. Fortunately there is a lot of ice on moons like Europa, and plenty of other valuable minerals and metals in the asteroid belt. There has always been a frontier: cyberspace has come and gone as the lastest frontier: next comes a space station! Once we've colonized out to the asteroid belt, perhaps interplanetary cyberspace will become still another metaphysical frontier to be explored?

I'm not sure where I was going with all of that. It trips me out.

Have you read The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps? I think it would be right in line with your interests. It is the most mind-blowing book I have ever read, making NASA look like a bunch of idiots and literally turning galactic colonization into a rather common-sensical eight easy steps, beautiful in their simplicity. If you have a scientific mind, this book will make you trip hard balls of intellectual goodness. There's even a website carrying on the book's legacy by updating the material as new scientific insights arise.

I'm assuming you're looking for things geared toward a layman audience, and not textbooks. Here's a few of my personal favorites:

Sagan

Cosmos: You probably know what this is. If not, it is at once a history of science, an overview of the major paradigms of scientific investigation (with some considerable detail), and a discussion of the role of science in the development of human society and the role of humanity in the larger cosmos.

Pale Blue Dot: Similar themes, but with a more specifically astronomical focus.


Dawkins

The Greatest Show on Earth: Dawkins steers (mostly) clear of religious talk here, and sticks to what he really does best: lays out the ideas behind evolution in a manner that is easily digestible, but also highly detailed with a plethora of real-world evidence, and convincing to anyone with even a modicum of willingness to listen.


Hofstadter

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid: It seems like I find myself recommending this book at least once a month, but it really does deserve it. It not only lays out an excruciatingly complex argument (Godel's Incompleteness Theorem) in as accessible a way as can be imagined, and explores its consequences in mathematics, computer science, and neuroscience, but is also probably the most entertainingly and clearly written work of non-fiction I've ever encountered.


Feynman

The Feynman Lectures on Physics: It's everything. Probably the most detailed discussion of physics concepts that you'll find on this list.

Burke

Connections: Not exactly what you were asking for, but I love it, so you might too. James Burke traces the history of a dozen or so modern inventions, from ancient times all the way up to the present. Focuses on the unpredictability of technological advancement, and how new developments in one area often unlock advancements in a seemingly separate discipline. There is also a documentary series that goes along with it, which I'd probably recommend over the book. James Burke is a tremendously charismatic narrator and it's one of the best few documentary series I've ever watched. It's available semi-officially on Youtube.

Hello! I'll try to answer with the best of my knowledge as engine designs are fairly complicated and diversified!

> How critical is ACC, i.e. how much do those blades actually creep?

If you are talking about active tip clearance systems, we didn't have those in the company I worked for. I did study those though. It is tremendously beneficial for the fan efficiency. As for the creep, I have never seen or heard of it being caused by a tip clearance system. They do happen to creep sometimes for various reason, the most being FOD.

> Are modern FADEC components like FCU's and EEC's easily swapped LRU's or is it a hangar job? Never actually seen this properly explained anywhere and I'd rather not get the 400kg A320 AMM out.

I have never worked in that area but I am fairly certain that most FADEC comps are actually LRUs. I mean, I've done a compressor blade maintenance on a recently landed helicopter, which consists in removing the dents and notches on the leading edge of the blades. The amount of material you can remove while still retaining 99-100% of the compressor performance is quite astounding. But to answer your question, I do not know if they are LRUs, but am pretty sure they are!

> Could you recommend any good reference material for flight crew to study for our engineering/design/professional development interest?

Sure, very interesting books on aircraft and aircraft engine design:

http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Propulsion-Gas-Turbine-Engines/dp/0849391962

http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114

> Ever seen an uncontained failure?

I have stories about some of those since I worked in a repair plant! But my favorite one is from a twin-pack engine from Columbia, multiple gunshots, the turbine ripped part of the shroud. Also lots of bird tartar. Lucky I was not doing disassembly cleaning!

Well, you shouldn't be 100% sure there's 'no' weight, either. Because gravitational fields go as 1/r^2 so even in deep space there are small, but non-zero gravitational forces acting on masses. Which means those masses have small but non-zero weight.

If you're curious about the details of how rockets work, a better source for information than flat-earth blogs would be books on rockets. And rockets are super interesting. The basics of rocket motion are mathematically fairly straightforward (though still not exactly easy: variational-mass problems are a bit tricky and require a bit of practice with calculus.) But then the details of rockets, from an engineering standpoint, and controlling 3-dimensional motion in a precise way is super complicated. So is long-distance space flight-path dynamics because of the motion of the planets. Things like sling-shotting around Jupiter for a gravitational assist.

So if it's something you're interested in, you can really get super deep into it and never run out of things to learn. Something like this might be a nice start, assuming you have a reasonable mathematical background.

Have fun!

STEM generates wealth. Good message.

But apace advocates have been saying this since the 1960's. Neil's not bringing anything new to the table. This 2012 testimony didn't generate much support from policy makers. Neither did the book he published in 2012.

Space advocates can point to huge benefits generated by research from the 1950's and 60's. Not all of it was NASA R&D. Some of it was military and commercial. A few of the more prominent:

Miniaturization of electronics -- Rockets and missiles needed compact, low mass electronics. U.S. funded R&D helped put American companies at the forefront of an electronics revolution. There were already transistor radios around when NASA formed but the R&D helped accelerate trends like Moore's Law.

Communication sats. Generally not NASA's but it's hard to imagine commerical entities launching satellites if NASA and the U.S. military hadn't blazed a trail. These are huge beneficial spin off from the space program.

Weather sats. Again, not NASA but enabled by development of launch technology More accurate weather prediction has saved lives, prevented property damage and enabled farmers to produce more food.

Will future NASA endeavors generate such dramatic spin offs? If that could be solidly demonstrated, it'd be easier to persuade policy makers. I certainly don't regard it as a given.

One of the rallying cries has been Colonize Mars! With huge, disposable rockets like the SLS. Basically Apollo rockets redux. The Apollo trips to the moon were about 10 billion a pop. It is likely SLS trips to Mars every two years would be even more expensive. Settling Mars would take a long sustained effort taking decades or maybe even centuries. Would policy makers support that sustained effort? An expensive, high profile program would be a lightning rod for policy makers that want to appear fiscally responsible. I'd give the program two presidential cycles. Agaiin, Apollo redux.

Some critics maintain the chief benefit of SLS and Orion is providing employment in certain congressional districts. Pork, in other words. I tend to agree. I don't think NASA is blazing new trails with SLS and Orion.

Many serious proponents of exploiting and settling space call for improved robotics and In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). Already British Petroleum is using remotely operated vehicles to build sophisticated infrastructure on the sea floor where humans can't reach. Should NASA invest heavily in improved tele-robots, this could potentially generate enormous spin offs. I can see tele-robot operaters donning their motion capture suits in their living rooms. No need to commute to work. Besides working on the lunar surface or on asteroids, tele-robot operatros could do work in the deeper mines, high mountain tops, the sea floor. As well as hazardous disaster areas like Fukashima after a tsunami.

Summary: "A penny for NASA" is too simplistic. Some NASA projects might have big pay offs. Others are likely dead ends. If we want to persuade policy makers and fire up the public, we need to place our bets on good horses.

Not sure if you've played then, but haven't: Kerbal Space Program is the best way to get an intuitive understanding of orbital mechanics. If you like to play God you should also try the Universe Sandbox, and if you want a really really hardcore space sim you should play (or wait, it's still in alpha) for Rogue System.


As for actual books, OpenStax recently published their free astronomy book, and it's quite good for an introduction. From there, it depends entirely on what you're interested in, there's literally a universe's worth of information about
Astrophysics,
Astrochemistry,
Astrobiology,
Astrometry and
Orbital mechanics (for the aspiring galactic navigator),
Cosmology,
Planetary geology and
Cosmochemistry (careful, these last two lead to geology and meteorology which are equally disastrously addictive fields!)


Also, feel free to follow NASA's, ESA's, and JAXA's blogs. And spend a minute each morning checking the astronomy picture of the day.


Just don't end up llike me and annoy all your friends.

I'm probably a bit late here, but I had a spell for six months or so (more than a decade ago), when I was rather distracted by reading (putatively non-fiction) books about space colonization. So here's my late-night ranting summary of this research (links to some key references at the end of this post):

A strong argument can be made that the short- and long-term goals of colonizing space should NOT be to colonize other planets, but in between.

In the "short" term, this could help people on Earth solve certain specific resource scarcity problems (particularly with rare metals and energy production), but colonizing space (or other planets) is NOT a general solution to Earth's overpopulation, pollution, war/conflict, famine, disease, etc. The fuel costs of getting off the Earth are just too outrageous to ever lift a significant fraction of people into space. If anything, the probable isolation of space colonies (planetary or otherwise) could easily create all sorts of issues by themselves. Long-term, this would just be about expansion, spreading life out across the solar system for reasons already in this thread.

If you, erm, dig into the space colonization literature, a lot of the most compelling things have to do with building very large orbital space colonies that spin to simulate gravity, and then recovering natural resources from space, mostly solar power and mining asteroids to sustain and grow colonies and provide attractive merchandise to the Earth.

The classics of the genre (which is much larger than I expected) were written around the time of the space race and focused on bootstrapping self-sustaining orbital colonies, and importantly were built around technology and principles from that time period, not requiring huge leaps in technology (or remotely reasonable computing power). So now these things would (in principle) be more feasible today than, say, the 1970s. The basic notion is that it is far too expensive (and kind of pointless) to focus on colonizing planets. We would basically increase our costs massively, since we would constantly have to climb out of massive
gravity wells. So we should just live in space itself. This isn't saying that we couldn't settle worlds, but that would be a side-show to the main event.

The initial costs are outrageous (though not compared to colonizing Mars), and I personally have a hard time justifying any of it, when we have a hard time dealing with some basic-ass shit just in the US much less the world, but given some disposable income and solidarity, the people of Earth could do it. Should we? In my mind, outside Earth orbit, I'd focus on using robots, until we get our shit together (perhaps helped by robots bring from space the feedstocks for clean fusion plants).

The bootstrapping comes from mining and extremely excellent solar power (which are both much better in orbit than on a planet). The original idea of beaming energy to Earth via microwave radiation is perhaps a bit hare-brained, but maybe not completely. However, asteroid mining could be extremely lucrative, given self-sustaining orbital bases of operation. Mining on Mars or other non-Earth planets is absolutely NOT profitable in most cases, because the cost of lifting material into orbit would kill the margins. Space elevators are a possible futuristic thing for Mars, certainly compared to Earth (though see potential Mars-wide catastrophes a la Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy).

The massive exception to planet-based mining is Helium-3. Helium-3 is extremely scarce on Earth, and mostly obtained as a byproduct of nuclear weapons manufacturing. But large amounts of the stuff could feed clean fusion plants (i.e. not producing radioactive waste). The bootstrap here is a bit destructive, since it involves strip mining the Moon (no elevator needed to save fuel during off-Moon transport, just a big rail gun). But it would be much better to dip robots into the gas giants to filter helium for helium-3 for this potentially outrageously lucrative source of income that could lead to a post energy scarcity world.

Many of the intensely researched books in this area are a bit needlessly provincial in their world view, offering a sort-of space suburbanite 1950's White Americana feel, but they are written by some serious scientists/engineers, and I think they have a lot to offer in the vein OP is seeking. An oddity that might define the genre is that they probably legitimately qualify as non-fiction, but frequently use the future tense, which is, well, unusual, and most of them kind of go off-the-rails at some point. Nevertheless, there are some pretty serious ideas in these classics and their ilk about how this could be done in a way that is really Earth-centered at the outset, where the whole point is to find a new untapped resource to exploit.

Okay, so as not to lose track of OP's main question, I'll stop.

Core reading list:

The original classic is Arthur C. Clarke's The Promise of Space, published in 1968. This sets the stage for the idea that terraforming is not the main event and the man that proposed the geosynchronous orbit covers some serious ground.

The CLASSIC classic is Gerard K. O'neill's The High Frontier, published in 1977. This is essential reading for the space colonization aficionado and forms the foundation of the "non-fiction" genre around the subject.

The mining classic w is Mining the Sky by John S. Lewis, published in 1997. This really lays out the mining thing, especially with respect to the shittiness of big gravity wells and how abundant supplies of helium-3 could be transformative.

I'll quit. There's so many more possible references that explore very proximate things, like how to insure rocket launches and way more far-out stuff, like how to minimize inbreeding on generation ships, but I think if I were to pick three things to read, those are them.

EDITS: for some typos and grammar that I saw.

Haha... That applet is fun to play with!

First off, spiraling in or shooting way off are no the only options. You can orbit at many speeds and altitudes. In a perfect world, orbits are either ellipses with an eccentricity between 0 and 1, a parabola with a perfect eccentricity of 1, or a hyperbola with an eccentricity greater than 1. Wiki conic sections if you need more information of those shapes.

The ellipse is the orbit, obviously, and the Earth is at one of the focii? An ellipse will keep its shape without spiraling in. It will only stop unless near the perigee the distance between the orbit and focus is smaller than the radius of the earth (collision).

A parabola is the perfect eccentricity where the satellite will not come back, and basically will eventually fly away and stop somewhere, while a hyperbola will have some escape velocity that it will keep flying at.

The only problem with perfect conic section orbits are perturbations. One is atmospheric drag. Even at LEO orbits, drag affects orbits. The ISS falls a few feet a day, and requires frequent changes to keep it at altitude. Higher Geo-synchronous orbits have very negligible drag, but its affected by Moon's gravity more, as the moon has its own gravitational pull.

Humans cannot simply launch a perfect rocket from earth and have it just "land" in the perfect orbit that it was intended for (like shooting a 3 pointer from miles away). Until a satellite is where it needs to be, it requires small changes in direction and speed, but these usually aren't very large and usually take place when you get closer to the destination.

There are books and books of orbital equations. I am in my 2nd of 4 graduate level orbital determination classes, but a good starting point would be the wiki page on the vis-viva equation. Following Wiki around can give you a better understanding than I can in a comment.

If you really are fascinated by this information, and are a self learner, I would definitely go check out Orbital Mechanics. I used this book in my class and it explains it well enough to learn it without an instructor..

• Aerodynamics: Anything written by John Anderson. Specifically Fundamentals of Aerodynamics is a good general text. I have every book he's written and they're all pillars of excellent teaching. If you're just looking to get started, I teach incoming freshmen from his Introduction to Flight book which is very easy to pick up regardless of your level of knowledge.
  
  
• Jet Propulsion: Aircraft Propulsion by Saeed Farokhi. Don't let the name scare you away. This book is my engine bible. He's an excellent professor and his book is a labor of love.
  
  
• Rocket Propulsion: Rocket Propulsion Elements by Sutton & Biblarz is the standard and is the reference I keep on hand for rocket data and theory.
  
  
• Aircraft Design: Jan Roskam's Aircraft Design Series (8 books) contain an amazing wealth of information and serve as a 'cookbook' for aircraft design. Some of the information is dated and it's not always easy to read, but it's the only place you'll find a lot of the information. As a second reference, I keep Nicolai's Fundamentals of Aircraft & Airship Design Part 1 on hand as well. It's very easy to read and I feel it's superior in approach and presentation to Raymer's Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach which is what I originally learned from.

During the satellite pass, the direction that you ideally should point it at is constantly changing.. At first the ideal direction at near the horizon where the satellite first appears, then over an arc in the sky until it hits the other horizon disappearing below the rim of the earth. So it can be, worst case, at position that are ultimately 180º opposite in the sky over a period of 10 or so minutes.

The actual direction is determined by the orbital mechanics of the satellite (which can be calculated with a computer but it's a hot mess if you don't have STEM-level math). With this you'd use that data to control the azimuth and elevation of the antenna under robotic control from the computer. The math is algebra, geometry, trigonometry plus calculus. I can point you to the math but it may not mean much.

http://web.aeromech.usyd.edu.au/AERO4701/Course_Documents/AERO4701_week2.pdf

http://www.space.aau.dk/cubesat/documents/Orbital_Mechanics.pdf

Fundamentals of Astrodynamics

This last book is my "go-to" partly because it's relatively easy and because it's the book I learned orbital mechanics with when I was a "rocket scientist" working at this place.

LOL it's fascinating that they are serving a different web site outside the US. Not surprising but fascinating to see.

• First you determine the orbital ellipse from the satellites "orbital elements"; the GOES uses a "polar orbit" - you have to get the actual specific elements
  
• Then you determine the approximate time when you are interested in viewing it from your particular position on the earth
  
• Then you determine the range of times when the satellite is actually viewable - this then enables you to know what the ellipse is in space that defines the satellite's position during that time
  
• From that you can then do a coordinate transform from that ellipse in the sky to a local earth-referenced coordinate frame for your position on the earth
  
• And then using that, you can drive a "mount" for your antenna similar to a telescope with an Az-El or Equatorial mount. The actual coordinate transform differs depending on the mount you are using. Az-El is probably the more intuitive to a newbie (though it's not ideal for actual astronomy - an equatorial is better because it removes a degree of freedom (which gives more accuracy) required to track an orbiting object or an object in the sky).
  
  Instead of that you can get by by being "close enough" to cover most of the path. That's typically what people do. You point at the mid-point of the path and try to catch the extrema of the path in the antenna "side lobes".
  
  When you see people asking about the edges (top or bottom) images being noisy and not being right, it's usually because these extremes and the gain of the antenna doesn't have enough gain in the side lobes to assure noise-free reception using a fixed pointing direction or with the amount of directionality the antenna has.
  
  This is part of why simpler, less directional antennas can sometimes give better results because they receive over a broad range of angles than a direction antenna like a parabolic.
  

Quite literally, it means change of velocity. When people talk about "needing enough dV to get somewhere," what they mean is that, they need enough fuel to get there. I'm going to use arbitrary numbers right now because I'm too lazy to look up the actual ones, and simple is better anyhow.

Lets say you have a craft in low kerbin orbit. You want to go to the Mun. You're currently traveling 2300 m/s. In order to intercept the Mun, you need to be going 2900 m/s. Once in the Mun's sphere of influence you're traveling at 800 m/s, and you need to burn retrograde until you're traveling at 200 m/s to achieve orbit. The opposite is true to achieve escape velocity, and then once you escape, you're traveling 3000 m/s and need to reduce your speed to 2700 m/s for your periapsis to allow re-entry to kerbin.

(Again, these numbers are ball park, not exact).

So, the dV you need to get to the Mun's SoI is 600 m/s (from 2300 to 2900). A capture burn is 600 m/s, and an escape burn is 600 m/s. A final burn for entry is 300 m/s of dV. So, the total dV your ship needs in this scenario to go for the whole trip is 2100 m/s of dV.

Now, this does get a little more complicated when in an atmosphere, because you'll burn more fuel trying to escape than you would in a vacuum. Also, the effect of gravity on your craft is going to change the efficiency of your rocket depending on how much vertical and horizontal velocity you have at various points of your burn. When people say they're building a ship with ideal dV, what they typically mean is "I did the math and found that if I manage to fly the most optimal flight path available to use my fuel the most efficiently, I need enough fuel to perform dV burns at various points in the trip totally this number." The math behind all these variables gets a lot more complicated, and if you really want to nerd out, "Fundamentals of Astrodynamics" will help you to understand what the hell is going on just a bit better. I like that book because it has the math, a brief explanation, and diagrams all in one package. You'll learn all about various transfer types too!

...or you can just download mods that do the work for you, like many people! Or, you can just wing it and hope for the best like even more people! I mean, worst case scenario it's time for a rescue mission, right?

Audio Books are your friend, like seriously pick up something to listen to.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman


The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character


The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene


The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos by Brian Greene


Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration by Michio Kaku

Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time: Great Discoveries by Michio Kaku


The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind (This one I recommend on the highest degree, personally I have read it 3 times)


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe by Stephen W. Hawking


Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan


Contact by Carl Sagan


Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan

All these books I've listened to or read, and I recommend all of them some more then others, I have tons more about Quantum Mechanics, Physics, Biology, Cosmology, Astronomy, Math etc. But I'm to lazy to list all of them here.

All the land is under the thumb of one government or another, so simply purchasing land will do you no good. The one possible exception is Somalia, but then you'll be just another warlord, and the guys already there have more practice than you. You'll need to create new land.

Start by donating to focusfusion.org. If it works out (and things are looking good so far) then in five years we have commercial small-scale non-radioactive fusion reactors producing power at 1/50 the price of coal. As a backup, invest in polywell fusion, which will be a bit slower to develop but still good. From there you can take two routes:

• These little fusion reactors will make excellent rockets, bringing launch costs down enough for middle-class people to get to space, with travel time to Mars of about a month. Start a space colony.
  
  
• With cheap plentiful power, you can implement Marshall Savage's seasteading project, accreting "seacrete" from the ocean and cheaply building a large ocean colony. (See Savage's book The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps.)
  
  For an even more speculative project, fund experiments on the Woodward Effect, which, if Einstein and Mach were right, could reduce launch costs to almost nothing and get us to Mars in a couple days, and Saturn in a week.
  
  Since you're proposing a massive land purchase, perhaps you have massive funds to do this sort of thing. You could get your libertarian nation without hassling with legacy governments, and incidentally, save the world.
  
  If you don't have the massive funds yourself, start a foundation and get a big group of people together to do it.
  
  
  

Let me add, that I bought this game back in 2012... Looking at my email receipt:


>Aug 6, 2012 19:29:07 EDT | Transaction ID: 0XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

>Hello Derfherdez,

>You sent a payment of $18.00 USD to Electro Chango S.A. de C.V.

So, yes it was worth $18 USD back then, and it sure is worth that today. At the same time I've gifted about 5 copies of this to friends/family over the years so I've spent way more on KSP, and it's totally worth it.

If you have ever seen the right stuff, Apollo 13, or even been inspired with the idea of the next frontier... This is an incredible buy. It's realistic enough that it's nothing retarded like pressing 'F' to pay respect, but enough that people here have even bought books like Fundamentals of Astrodynamics to get a better idea on how things 'work'.

The game will challenge you in ways that nor mindless button masher ever will. And maybe, just maybe inspire people to take us to that next great leap for mankind.

10/10 I'd buy this game over and over.

Get the demo, build a rocket, try to get it to do something, then get the game before the sale runs out!

Not sure which version of the TV series you are getting, but on my DVD copy, at the end of each episode they have either Carl or Anne Druyan (his wife) giving an "Update Since Cosmos Was Aired". These were filmed somewhere close to 94 when he passed, so they're still a bit out of date from today, but still nice to see him realize some of the fascinating discoveries since.

Edit: If you enjoyed Cosmos, I'd highly recommend Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. It's pretty much a sequel to Cosmos, where Sagan contemplates the far future, and some of the possible means for mankind to explore the universe.

I'm sorry if this is not what you asked, but if you have at the very least high school or ideally some university level knowledge of math it sounds like Fundamentals of Astrodynamics might be at least part of what you are looking for? It's focus is orbital mechanics and maneuvers in space, including interplanetary trajectories. While i have not finished it, it is so far really good and widely used. Bonus points for being really cheap. Although again, you do need math to really appreciate this book. Without going through the math you can still learn some things from it, but i am not sure if this book would still be that fun to read.

It wasn't well worded. His point is that a great argument can be made that we have had both the technological and financial capability to start sending humans to Mars on the regular since the 1980's. What we've lacked is only the political and social will to do so.

NASA often comes up with fantastic new excuses for this, some more valid than others. "We need to learn more about the long term physiological effects" is valid, but is mostly invalidated by the tremendous amount of research that has already been done. When do we have, "enough"?

Saying we need this hibernation technology to do it is a lot like saying we need a better propulsion system to do it. We don't. Would it be nice? Sure. Is it an excuse for not going? Hell no.

For a much more in-depth analysis of this, and for a look at what is in many opinions a vastly superior way to do approach this, check out that book.

Amazon link.

Edit: As an added note, Elon Musk has a similar outlook. The implementation he's seeking is significantly different, but it has the same attitude. But unlike Zubrin, Musk had the capital to say, "screw it, I'll do it myself".

The original Cosmos book by Sagan might be good here. If your friend likes that, follow up with The Pale Blue Dot.

If you want to to give your friend a taste, direct him to the Sagan Series, specifically, part 3: A reassuring Fable.

Your friend might also benefit from seeing Science Saved My Soul.

I work in the lab that is cited in your [3] reference. They actually cite the paper incorrectly. It should be Alberts, not Alperts. Check here for more and newer references. Be sure to check out the Ronca papers and the awesome NASA patch as well. The experiment found that the rat pups' vestibular systems did not develop properly. Once returned to earth, pups would not right themselves when dropped on their backs into an aquarium whereas pups not gestated in microgravity will roll before hitting the bottom. Mothers showed atrophy in muscles that are used to hold them off of the ground but, interestingly, had more muscle growth in areas that allowed them to turn at the core. Since every surface of the cage is essentially a floor they rotated along their longitudinal axis repeatedly. There were also neurological changes but I don't remember the details well enough to be able to elaborate without reading the papers again.

EDIT: This book is a pretty great read on a variety of "people in space" topics including, in part, the above experiments.

What you seem to be not understanding is that using a simulator is far and away the quickest, easiest, and because it is completely free, the cheapest way to learn how rocket science really works. Using a simulator will save you countless hours when it comes to making a rocket over just shoving some chemicals into a tube and crossing your fingers. And speaking of fingers, it just might save you some of them, too. Because people do lose fingers playing with rockets.

Since you seem to be familiar with electronics, I'll make a comparison with LTSpice. Instead of spending hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on a parts library and expensive test gear you test all of your designs on a tool that is completely free.

This isn't gatekeeping. It is exactly the opposite. It is enabling.

As to sources to learn, one of the best resources is linked right in the sidebar:

https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/0470080248

There is even a copy available on archive.org:

https://archive.org/details/RocketPropulsionElements8thEditionByOscarBiblarzGeorgeP.Sutton

This is also something that gets mentioned almost daily in discussions here. Pretty much any thread on motor construction has referenced it.

And has already been mentioned numerous times in this thread, Nakka's website is
pretty much the de-facto standard when it comes to sugar propellants. But seriously, any google search on sugar propellants should bring that up so it really shouldn't even need to be said in the first place.

hijacking top comment to put in a shameless plug for Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars, an awesome discussion of why we need to go to Mars.

as /u/deanoyj says, it has all the things we need for an industrial civilisation, and also, due to a quirk of interplanetary mechanics, it doesn't cost much more fuel to go to Mars compared to going to the moon, just more time.

Mars has everything we need, is (relatively) easy to get to, and can act as a halfway station to the asteroid belt, a vast untapped wealth of raw metals and resources. Bonus: colonising mars will force the settlers to recycle everything, which will give them a strong incentive to invent things that would be very useful down here on earth.

Seriously, go buy the book, Zubrin explains all the issues in detail and so much better than I ever could. I went in thinking we should go to the moon, and came out convinced we need to go to Mars, and we can do it fairly cheaply, if we accept some modest risks.

I highly recommend Tom Kelly's (LM Project Manager) book documenting the creation of these awesome machines.

Also, the episode Spider of the HBO mini series From the Earth to the Moon is based on the book. It is also wonderful (as is the whole series).

Many thanks to your grandfather and the whole LM team for their truly amazing accomplishment.

It sounds like you’re looking to be a spacecraft orbital analyst, or a mission analyst and trajectory planner as we call them at my company.

If this is your dream, choose aerospace engineering and choose a school that has a strong focus on space, because some are better for aircraft. CU boulder is a great example of a school that invests just as much if not more in their space systems research.

You want to start looking into spaceflight dynamics and astrodynamics. The best book for this would be “fundamentals of astrodynamics” by Bate, Mueller, and White. That book is a classic, it’s almost 50 years old but it’s the gold standard of this field. And it’s cheap as hell. You can find it here:

it’s only $15 with prime one day shipping!

I also highly recommend looking up beginner videos on YouTube to supplement the text. Once you have the basics down (orbit and conic geometry, rocket equation, etc) I’d download NASA GMAT (it’s free) and start waking through some tutorials on that software. If you go to college for engineering, usually the school will have STK (systems tool kit) available for free download as well. Both softwares are used heavily throughout the industry.

And play kerbal space program, it’s a fun way of learning and visualizing some of this stuff.

Sorry that other people are being harsh critics, but yeah man. Respectfully, a couple of these are pretty overpriced.

Thing is, most people would rather buy a new book from the store than buy a used book for barely less than retail. I suggest you lower the prices, especially keeping this in mind:

Astrodynamics sells new for $17: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610

Propulsion sells new for $25: https://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Thermodynamics-Propulsion-Philip-Peterson/dp/8131729516/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526807320&sr=1-2&keywords=mechanics+and+thermodynamics+of+propulsion+2nd+edition

Your edition of COE 3001 sells new for $113: https://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Materials-James-M-Gere/dp/1111577730/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526807508&sr=1-2&keywords=mechanics+of+materials+goodno and it's also not the current edition

Best of luck. And if you find someone looking specifically for the current edition of the Mechanics of Materials book, please send them my way!

Totally get it. I have had these moments myself. The world IS huge but more important, we are tiny. Very very tiny. Read Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. If you think you’re tiny compared to the Pacific, just imagine how tiny we are compared to the rest of our galaxy... or our universe!

Once we come to acceptance of our existence, we can come back down and live our life with a purpose to love and help each other. Think about how insignificant every war ever fought on earth is to the rest of the universe. But if we can help make each other’s lives better, that’s pretty cool.

Ok, the physics is one thing, but the psychology is another!

I was reading Packing for Mars today. She contrasted accounts from non-orbit spacewalking and orbital spacewalking: it sounds like while the Apollo mission spacewalks were euphoric and peaceful, orbital spacewalking often comes with a strong sensation of, well, falling. If I recall correctly, the visual stimuli cause most of the panic.

Packing for Mars is a great book, btw. I highly recommend the book and others by Mary Roach. I don't have the copy with me, but perhaps someone who does can give more details on this part.

> I gotta look at some orbital mechanics books

If you really want to go through with that I highly recommend "Introduction to rocket science and engineering". It goes reasonably into depth but is still accessible with a decent highschool math and physics background. Besides orbital mechanics it covers the basics of pretty much all aspects of rocket science (history, thermodynamics, orbital mechanics, propulsion elements etc.) It is a bit pricey though, you probably want to find it somewhere cheaper.

If you're a bit more advanced (primarily in math) you could also checkout "Fundementals of astrodynamics" which is nice and cheap or "Orbital Mechanics for engineering students" if you really want to make it your job.

I am a mechanical engineer by trade but I am really interested in spaceflight and orbital mechanics so in the past months I have been catching up with those books.

It's a big topic, and rocket engineering can't be summed in a reddit post. Buy yourself some books.

If you want more knowledge on the design and analysis of rockets, get a copy of Rocket Propulsion Elements By Sutton. (http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/0470080248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462063371&sr=8-1&keywords=rocket+propulsion+elements) - You don't have to buy the newest edition, thermodynamics hasn't changed.

I believe for vehicle design the best reference is SPAD (Space Propulsion Analysis and Design) (http://www.amazon.com/Space-Propulsion-Analysis-Design-Website/dp/0077230299/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462063423&sr=8-2&keywords=space+propulsion+analysis+and+design) - Wow, that's more expensive than I thought.

Both books are intended for upper level college courses so you will need to learn other stuff too - like thermodynamics. But if you are interested in the subject then It will keep you motivated to learn the prerequisites as you go.

To start, learn the rocket equation, if you don't know it already. It is easy to do your first order analysis with just that, and add ~1km/s for air + gravity drag. Also, Wikipedia has an astounding amount of information. /u/danielravennest Wrote this wikibook, I haven't read it myself but he is always raving about it so you might find it useful.

Feel free to PM me. I am currently the lead engineer on a small bipropellant in-space propulsion system which is in early development.

It's all calculable, but quicks starts needing a lot of math once you include orbit changes and air resistance.

An easy start is to determine your desired orbit's dV requirements, then plug your engine's Isp into the rocket equation to determine its propellant-mass fraction. Then you can use the weight of the engine plus fuel tanks and payload to estimate the fuel required to reach orbit in an ideal rocket.

There are quite a few online calculators like this one, that give you a sense of what order to calculate things and the terms to look for in equations.

If you're really interested in deeply understanding the maths behind launches and orbital mechanics, I can recommend this book which is a commonly used aerospace engineering text: Fundamentals of Astrodynamics.

The book The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps talks about a suit that is made from a material similar to lycra.

The anthology Armored has a bunch of stories about armored suits, and possible variations from those.

Imagine the suits to vary depending on mission and MOS. Infantry, navigation, logistics, engineering etc.


If we get all fancy, lets imagine that they are all made of smart matter, or quantum dots, or some sort of mix that allows high variability, adaptation, low weight, and lots of energy available to do the sort of stuff our hero would need doing.

Remember the utility fog in "Quantum Thief"? I imagine that these new suits would be pretty much like that, fast reaction times, not in the way unless needed, light, flexible and extremely expensive. Also, failure ought to be benign as to protect until rescued.

I'm a fan of my old copy of Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, by Bate, Mueller, and White. It was, by far, the cheapest textbook I purchased for my Aerospace degree (~$7; Amazon has it for <$3 used) but it is one of the primary texts in the field--most other texts wind up referencing this 1970s book. I seldom reference it anymore, though. FoA primarily focuses on how to calculate the motion of a spacecraft. It covers the Patched conics approach, various basic maneuvers, and interplanetary trajectories. It also covers how to figure out the orbit of an object based on ground measurements as well as perturbations--how things like uneven gravity, solar wind, and magnetism can affect an orbiting craft.

I also have read some of the AIAA edition of Space Vehicle Design, but it is considerably more expensive. It goes over more advanced concerns for the design and operation of practical, real-world space craft. If you have the coin and are interested in such things then you could pick it up. I've found the AIAA editions of Aerospace books to be well written in general. That book is only really worth it, though, if you have enough money that you won't miss the $70+ to buy or if you need it for your degree.

I've also had some luck with MIT Open Courseware, but I don't see much on aerospace that would be terribly relevant to KSP.

http://www.amazon.com/The-High-Frontier-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X

1. a modest lunar colony on the moon
   
   
2. several coil guns powered by electricity able to accelerate 10+ kg cannisters in to lunar orbit
   
   
3. a mining operation able to refine lunar regolith, smelt it using hydrogen and press the melt into ferro-electric (magnetic) raw material or pig iron (composed of titanium, manganese, iron)
   
   
4. A production of the above of a launch of 1 such object per several seconds, thus exporting about a ton of material per 10 minutes per launch facility, or about
   
   
5. Note that with current technology such a harvesting base would require about 100 humans in full operation. One such base can be built for about onethird the current afghanistan/iraq wars total expenditures.
   
   
6. a facility to melt this ore, transport it to L4/L5, construct this material by means of focused solar light
   
   The Elysium habitat is about 2 miles big. It is not possible to construct such a Standford torus habitat by exporting materials from Earth surface - the launch of this amount of material would have deleterious effects on the planetary atmosphere - exporting that much material burns off A LOT OF energy, assuming any permutation of current propulsion types.
   
   The only way to construct these kinds of habitats would be by means of mining the moon and NEA asteroids. The time to implement these kinds of industrial infrastructures is (if we invest maximum effort as a planetary society) would be about 20-30 years, and after that we would be able to construct small "Island One" habitats, which are much smaller than these Stanford Torus rings.
   
   Essentially, it would be possible to construct an ever increasing number of these space habitats the moment you have the first. That implies that the number of habitats you can construct would follow an exponential rate. Let's assume it would be possible to erect the first (small) habitat 50 years after humanity goes full force space industrialization. Ten years later we'd have a small habitat. Twenty years we'd have three of these habitats. Thirty years later we would have something like six. Forty years later we could easily have over ten. Then 20, 40, 100, 200, 400. Essentially by 2150 we should have not a single such habitat, but thousands.
   
   Each with a few thousand people living on them.
   
   There is enough asteroid material in the solar system to replicate several thousand earth surfaces from these asteroids. Following the above exponential growth curve it follows that by 2250 most humans would or could be living in space under conditions substantially better than the ones depicted in te movie Elysium.
   
   Even better, the ability to produce energy by SBPS would follow the same trajectory.
   
   http://www.scoop.it/t/space-versus-oil
   
   This is all science fact. Nothing I have said is impossible with todays technologies'. In fact it was well possible with 1970s's technology and these designs were presented to the US senate in the mid 1970s.
   
   But then something happened and some people in charge decided this was not the way they wanted humanity to develop.

After looking through the Q&A on this thread, I noticed a trend in the type of questions asked. If the weird and often unspoken trivia of space travel interests you, I highly recommend reading Mary Roach's "Packing For Mars".

It is very nicely researched and you will probably find answers to many of the unanswered questions here. It is a New York Times best seller, and it is am amazing and amusing book.

The list provided by david is good, and I'm just going to point out two that are really good for understanding rockets and spaceflight:

One is Rocket Propulsion Elements, which I hear is great if you actually want to build your own engine. The other is Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, which helps to explain orbital mechanics, controls, and some other important facets of spaceflight like how we track a satellite from the ground.

Fly Me to the Moon, about non standard spacecraft trajectories has been sitting on my shelf, think thats gonna be the next book I read.
Mary Roach writes great nonfiction, but it tends to be more biology/anthropology.
Project Orion, a book about proposed nuclear powered space craft was excellent as well.
Lunar Base Handbook is more just a collection of papers, but its fascinating.

I know just the one! 'How Apollo Flew to the Moon' by David Woods.

https://www.amazon.ca/Apollo-Flew-Moon-David-Woods/dp/1441971785

It follows an entire mission through from liftoff to splashdown, and walks you through every element and how it worked. It has some anecdotal stuff from astronauts to keep it human, but it's almost entirely focused on the technology. It was a fantastic read, I loved it.

While the above is nice, if you are at all interested in rockets, get Rocket Propulsion Elements. Read it and love it, it is pretty much the bible of rocket engines and serves as a good foundation

For anyone who is interested in orbital mechanics simulations I've thrown together a very simple MATLAB function that will propagate an orbit in the earth centered earth fixed (ECEF) frame for a desired amount of time from any two line element set (TLE). This propagator assumes only earth's gravity, no perturbations although adding some, like drag, would be a good first project.


The MATLAB function is here:
[Earth_Orbit.m]
(http://pastebin.com/uH8DQWnR) (While needed all the code after line 50 is just to transform the TLE into a state vector so if you're looking to get started don't worry about that too much)

An example of a TLE:
ISS.txt (This one is for the ISS, find a whole bunch at http://www.heavens-above.com/)

You'll also need this lookup table for the Earth's neutation data:
nut80.dat


To use simply save the first pastebin as Earth_Orbit.m the second as ISS.txt and the third as nut80.dat. Put them in the same directory and point MATLAB to that directory. Call Earth_Orbit with the filename of your TLE and the time (sec) you want to see the orbit for.


Example:
Earth_Orbit ('ISS.txt',86400)
This shows the orbit of the ISS for 1 day. Note the ground track shown on the earth model in the output figure isn't correct since the texture is not applied in the correct direction (I think its off by pi but I'm not sure).


If you want to know more I suggest Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students by Curtis to get started and Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications by Vallado for a more in depth treatment. Be warned even if you're planning on doing relatively simple stuff you're probably going to need to know calculus to get started modeling.


Good Luck!


Credits:
David Vallado for his ECI to ECEF function.
Will Campbell for his Earth Sphere function.

Okay, the ELI11 made it sound like the simplest approach would be best. The rocket equation link still applies.

As for canned aspects of orbital mechanics, Kepler's 3rd law and the Vis-Viva equation still apply.

More generally, I like braeunig for a website and Fundamentals of Astrodynamics for a textbook. It's probably best to look into exponential functions and Algebra (with an eye towards Calculus) as soon as possible, though.

Your link got me to purchase the current version of that book and Introduction to Space Dynamics. I'm working through the latter, though, as I found Bate's book completely beyond me–though good reading for the bit I did. Intro to Space Dynamics is proving very difficult, but I'm at least making some progress and feel like I have a chance at understanding it.

In short, thank you!

I can't help you with the French part but in America the standard is this. Most people refer to it as BMW for the authors' names. There might be translations of it; I don't know. It's actually a surprisingly fun read. The first few pages talk about Newton with a kind of religious fervor that you never see in a textbook. It's beautiful. Also, it's damn cheap.

My orbitals professor also wrote a more condensed pdf textbook which he gave just to us. It's actually more clear than almost any other engineering textbook I've used. If I can find it, I'll post it.

IMO you want Bate's Fundamentals of Astrodynamics.

I don't want to speak out of turn, as I wasn't alive at the time, but my professors claim to have learned everything on this bad boy. It's great for getting a grasp on the concepts and well worth the 15 dollar price tag even just to put on your shelf to sit there and look cool. I got it with that in mind and it's become my go-to. Admittedly, computational approaches have changed the standard regarding some of the info in this text but the core concepts are there and it makes the content approachable.

This question gets asked all the time on this sub. I did a search for the term books and compiled this list from the dozens of previous answers:

How to Read the Solar System: A Guide to the Stars and Planets by Christ North and Paul Abel.


A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.


A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.


Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan.


Foundations of Astrophysics by Barbara Ryden and Bradley Peterson.


Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program by Pat Duggins.


An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield.


You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station by Chris Hadfield.


Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the Space Transportation System by Dennis Jenkins.


Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, 1971-2010 by Chapline, Hale, Lane, and Lula.


No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time by Claus Jensen.


Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences by Andrew Chaikin.


A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin.


Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA by Amy Teitel.


Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module by Thomas Kelly.


The Scientific Exploration of Venus by Fredric Taylor.


The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.


Into the Black: The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Astronauts Who Flew Her by Rowland White and Richard Truly.


An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley Carroll and Dale Ostlie.


Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space by Willy Ley.


Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Clark.


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.


Russia in Space by Anatoly Zak.


Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment by John Lewis.


Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John Lewis.


Asteroid Mining: Wealth for the New Space Economy by John Lewis.


Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris.


The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe Report by Timothy Ferris.


Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandries by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson.


The Martian by Andy Weir.


Packing for Mars:The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach.


The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution by Frank White.


Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.


The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne.


Entering Space: An Astronaut’s Oddyssey by Joseph Allen.


International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by Hopkins, Hopkins, and Isakowitz.


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene.


How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin.


This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William Burrows.


The Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan.


Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz.


Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.


The end

PS - /u/DDE93 this list has all the links.

I found this book quite useful back in high school. I haven't seen/touched it in 10+ years, but the concepts have been tried and true for many many decades. It's math-based and is written by Air Force Academy professors. It definitely doesn't cover everything, but it can get you started in the right direction. It's also not too hard to grasp as far as concepts go, but knowing Calculus and the likes are going to make it fully understandable.

Ok the best place to start is always the bible of rocket science
https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/0470080248


also this is a great book about overall design

https://www.amazon.com/Spacecraft-Systems-Engineering-Peter-Fortescue/dp/047075012X/ref=pd_sim_14_19?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=047075012X&pd_rd_r=NV7BKDVSN225K69DY2JR&pd_rd_w=m3KtM&pd_rd_wg=XqmQL&psc=1&refRID=NV7BKDVSN225K69DY2JR

Other than rocket engines and structures it would be
https://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Mechanics-Engineering-Students-Aerospace/dp/0080977472/ref=pd_sim_14_5?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0080977472&pd_rd_r=NV7BKDVSN225K69DY2JR&pd_rd_w=m3KtM&pd_rd_wg=XqmQL&psc=1&refRID=NV7BKDVSN225K69DY2JR

https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0486600610&pd_rd_r=NV7BKDVSN225K69DY2JR&pd_rd_w=m3KtM&pd_rd_wg=XqmQL&psc=1&refRID=NV7BKDVSN225K69DY2JR

After reading that book cover to cover you can branch into multiple aspects of aerospace engineering.

There are also less formal and fun books like https://www.amazon.de/Ignition-informal-history-liquid-propellants/dp/0813507251
or
https://www.amazon.com/History-Liquid-Propellant-Engines-Library/dp/1563476495/ref=pd_sim_14_63?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1563476495&pd_rd_r=NV7BKDVSN225K69DY2JR&pd_rd_w=m3KtM&pd_rd_wg=XqmQL&psc=1&refRID=NV7BKDVSN225K69DY2JR

Well a good intro. textbook is Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker. This is a full freshman physics book, so it has a little bit of everything, but I used it a lot through my entire undergraduate degree.


Had a class that technically required Theory of Relativity by Pauli but the teacher used their own notes so I never read the book.


My favorite book that deals with relativity is Exploring Black Holes by Taylor and Wheeler. Took an undergrad class where this was the main textbook and loved it.

These were the 3 I picked up.

This one seems to be the most popular, probably because of it's publication timeframe, 1971. Not too early, not too late.

This is an earlier textbook and is considered a classic at this point. Still useful.

While less popular (and more expensive), I found this one to be my favorite. Hard to say why, some combination of layout, examples, and teaching style. The fact that it was also published in my lifetime, unlike the other 2, might have something to do with it as well in terms of language, etc.

But take /u/The_Mother_of_Robots advice and don't do it. This is a slippery slope thick atmosphere in a deep gravity well. There is no Lagrange point, just the abyss.

Hey, falingodingo, here is a book that might interest you, Colonizing the galaxy in eight easy steps. While it is outlandish in the extreme, it also has this impossible grandiose vision of easy space exploration. I do think that, if we humans wanted to go to space we would achieve it through fast innovations and cheap designs.

Even if it is not volunteer anything, even it is for profit, we could go spending these 150billion or 1 trillion or whatever. But since there is no need to go, no need to explore (sadly) there is no incentive.

Well, we can always go in the Chinese or Indian ships, many years from now.

This is one of the places.

Basically, in short form, the Lunar Module (LM) was actually built from two stages: the Descent Stage and the Ascent Stage.

Each stage had its own independent rocket engine. The Descent Stage rocket engine was used to take the LM out of lunar orbit and land on the moon. The Ascent Stage rocket engine, which, again, was entirely separate from the Descent Stage rocket engine, was used to launch just the Ascent Stage back into lunar orbit.

The Ascent Stage contained the pressurized crew cabin, as well as most of the electronics to actually control the combined Lunar Module.

So, the combination of the Ascent Stage's independent rocket engine, along with the computer and guidance/control systems built into the Ascent Stage allowed it to successfully lift off the moon and rendezvous with the CSM.

If you want more details, there are numerous websites and books that can go into more detail than I possibly could.

One book in particular, "How Apollo Flew to the Moon", goes into considerable detail on the entire Apollo system, including the LM:

http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Springer-Praxis-Books-Exploration/dp/1441971785/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347300598&sr=8-2&keywords=how+apollo+flew+to+the+moon

A bit more googling will get you more details. Also try the Wikipedia pages on Apollo and the LM for more info and links to additional details.

Hope that helps

EDIT:

If you want another website from which to access additional information, try the "Beyond Apollo" website, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/beyondapollo/

Also, look at these Youtube videos, which are actual NASA movies which describe different parts of the Apollo missions:

Lunar Orbit rendezvous, part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuA5xNfYUFo&feature=relmfu


Launch Windows for Apollo Lunar missions (i.e. why did they have to launch at specific times on specific dates?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzthaO29tNY&feature=relmfu

Apollo atmospheric re-entry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-6VQsVoc1I&feature=relmfu

Thank you :) If you're looking for some rabbit holes, and if it's not gauche to recommend my own work, I've written at length about a few different aspects of the Apollo program:

Going boldly: Behind the scenes at NASA’s hallowed Mission Control Center

Apollo Flight Controller 101: Every console explained

No, a “checklist error” did not almost derail the first moon landing

45 years after Apollo 13: Ars looks at what went wrong and why

How NASA brought the monstrous F-1 “moon rocket” engine back to life

Putting my own writing aside and focusing on real authoritative sources, there's also the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. Between that and its companion site, the Apollo Flight Journal, you have a carefully annotated and curated collection of every transmission, photograph, spoken word, and artifact from the entire Apollo program. Warning: you can lose entire weeks of your life here, especially in the high-rez photo galleries (much of the photography was done on 70mm medium format Hasselblad cameras, and the restored and digitized images are astonishingly beautiful and detailed).

If you prefer your space facts in printed form, I very much recommend Woods' How Apollo Flew to the Moon as an excellent one-stop-shop for understanding everything that happened in the Apollo program.

There are two must-have books that completely and totally capture the human adventure that was Apollo. The first is Chaikin's A Man on the Moon, which focuses on the crews and the landings (and was used as the primary source for the excellent HBO mini, [From the Earth to the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(miniseries), which everybody should watch because it's basically "Band of Brothers in space" and has awesome scenes like this). The second is Cox & Murray's Apollo: Race to the Moon, which focuses on Mission Control and the almost unbelievable amount of work that had to happen on the ground to make Apollo happen.

There are lots of other excellent Apollo books, but those two (Chaikin and Cox & Murray) are the two to buy if you want some absolutely mind-blowing reading.

Sorry to saturate you with links, but Apollo is kind of my thing :D

All I can think of are examples in physics where the algebra can be quite hard, but necessary for solving interesting problems. For example, problems dealing with particle collisions in special relativity are quite algebraically challenging, but the results are usually very simple, and you get to do something useful with the math. Any introductory special relativity book should have such problems.

Similarly, this is a rather nice book, at the sophomore college level, for learning about the physics of motion and orbits around a black hole. The nice thing about it is that it requires only algebra and elementary calculus, and the algebra can be quite hard. If you invest the time to read the chapters and work through the many exercises, you learn some mind bending things while at the same time getting some serious algebra practice.

Definitely. For further reading, I recommend Wiesel's Spaceflight Dynamics.

It is much easier for a satellite to maintain its orientation if it is spinning. Otherwise, it starts to drift and point in different directions. Satellites must then be designed to spin on one of the two stable axes, because if it ends up on the intermediate axis it will wobble (and you lose your TV, cell phone connection, etc.).

What this usually means is distributing the mass of the internal components a certain way, or even adding ballast weights to set the moments of inertia as desired.

A pack of playing cards may be a simple rectangular prism, but even a complicated object like a satellite exhibits the same dynamic properties... it's just a lot tougher to figure out what the axes are.

Beyond stabilizing satellites, any maneuvering in space needs to take these concepts into account. A maneuver on the intermediate axis will be unstable. Spacecraft need to either compensate, or perform maneuvers on stable axes as much as possible.

P.S. I think they have to be designed to spin on one axis actually, but I can't remember if it's the minor or major axis. As energy slowly decays, the spin will gradually transition to one of the axes... but college was a long time ago.

IIRC The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space, O'Neil (Bezos' professor cited in the article) sustained that pollution wouldn't ever be a problem in space because any undesired substance would be simply vented out of the habitat and solar wind would disperse it through hundreds of millions of miles of vacuum, all the way to insterstellar space. Like what happens in a comet tail. It was indeed one of his points in advocating that space was far better for an industrial civilization than a planetary surface like Earth's, where all shit that we produce innevitably accumulates.

Of course, in the far future, with human population on the trillions and scattered all over the Solar System in those space cities, crunching asteroids, small moons and eventually dwarf planets all the time for more resources, I suspect that there would be too much exhausts and the Sun seen from far away would start to look vaguely like a planetary nebula. In fact, I would love to see some SETI project exploring the possibility that some of the planetary nebulas are indeed artificial byproducts of civilizations that scaped the great filter of staying in their home planets for too long and running out of resources.

Sure!
This first one is the one I like the best:
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics
Spaceflight Dynamics: Third Edition
Introduction to Space Dynamics
They're all heavy on equations and there's a lot of overlap among them. I found the first one, Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, to be the most approachable.

From Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach (chapter 11)


> The zero-gravity fart has been a popular orbital pursuit, particularly on all-male flights. One hears tell of astronauts using intestinal gas like rocket propellant to "launch themselves across the middeck," as astronaut Roger Crouch put it. He had heard the claims and was dubious. "The mass and velocity of the expelled gas," he told me in an email that has forevermore endeared him to me, "is very small compared to the mass of the human body." Thus it was unlikely that it could accelerate a 180-pound astronaut. Crouch pointed out that an exhaled breath doesn’t propel an astronaut in any direction, and the lungs hold about six liters of air—versus the fart, which, as we learned from Dr. Murphy, holds at most three soda cans’ worth.

> Or the average person’s, anyway. "My genes have blessed me with an extraordinary ability to expel some of the byproducts of digestion," wrote Crouch. "So given that, I thought that it should be tested. In what I thought was a real voluminous and rapidly expelled purge, I failed to move noticeably." Crouch surmised that his experiment may have been compromised by the "action/reaction of the gas passing through "through the pants." Disappointingly, both his flights were mixed-gender, so Crouch was disinclined to "strip down naked" and try it again. He was heading to Cape Canaveral and promised to ask around for some other astronauts’ input, but so far no one is, as they say, spilling the beans.

Great book. If you get a chance to read it, it's chocked full of hilarious/disgusting/interesting stuff like this.

This was what my prof used in college

Fundamentals of Astrodynamics (Dover Books on Aeronautical Engineering) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0486600610/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_0.eJAb3FG9KQ0

I liked it a lot, but that may have to do with him being an amazing teacher and not the book itself lol

> So, citing someone with a PhD doesn't impress me, I have one so clearly they will give them to anyone.

He wrote the book on it:

https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X

> Asteroids are actually really far apart (at least in our solar system) and our problems are currently mostly about getting to space not really doing anything once we are there.

That's why we'll be starting with near-earth asteroids.

> Though once you are there I agree it is not necessarily all that costly to get around (just slow), but then you have to either use the metal up there or also suffer the cost of bringing it back down to the surface without killing anyone.

Most of the asteroid material will likely remain up there, yes. Far more valuable in space than on land. But for the extremely rare metals that won't be as true. We will not be manufacturing with rare earth metals in space any time soon.

> This would work much better if more of humanity were in space already and so there was an industrial presence outside earths gravity well, but between now and then it will be slow going.

It would take some time, but it's already completely doable. What's missing is the and the vision. Musk has gone a long way there, his vision to drive towards Mars will do a lot for this.

There are several courses that ARO (usually) has, but ME exclusive program doesn't, such as Gas Dynamics, Low/High Speed Aerodynamics, Orbital Mechanics, Aircraft Stability, and Jet Propulsion. I based this statement from the school (CalPoly Pomona) that I went to. YMMV.

Book recommendations:

• Orbital Mechanics
  
• Gas Dynamics & High Speed Aerodynamics
  
• Flight Mechanics
  
• Jet Propulsion
  
• Spacecraft Design
  
• Rocket Propulsion
  
  Aerospace is broad subject, you haven't specified whether you're interested in structures, aerodynamics, flight mechanics, or propulsion. I gave you a broad list of selection to reflect that, although I assume you are more inclined toward Astronautics (Space) part of Aerospace instead of Aeronautics (Air); hence you posted your question in /r/space.

Thanks !

Astroynamics - I really like Battin's introduction to astro ( amzn.to/2Iu6Jhz ), and based my series on the 2-body problem on chapter 3 in that book. It's a lot like a math textbook so BMW's Fundamentals of Astro ( amzn.to/2zJBWe3 ) would be a gentler, on both the wallet and mathematical rigor, text.

Numerical methods - I've learned numerical methods from a bunch of different places so I don't really have a go to textbook.

Note: Those are amazon affiliate links to the mentioned books. Affiliate links are the main way I support the site (pay for hosting costs)

Also if you or anyone else is really looking into it the two most useful text book I found to be SMAD (Space Mission Analysis and Design): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mission-Analysis-Design-Technology-Library/dp/9401051925/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=space+mission+analysis+and+design&qid=1559028595&s=gateway&sr=8-1


Other good reads are Fundamentals of Astrodynamics (which is much more relevant for KSP) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610/ref=sr_1_1?crid=SWR1ICPOGQ7X&keywords=fundamentals+of+astrodynamics&qid=1559028689&s=gateway&sprefix=the+fundamentals+of+astro%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-1 And Ignition! to cover the history in a very entertaining manner https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ignition-Informal-Propellants-University-Classics/dp/0813595835/ref=pd_sbs_14_1/259-4345144-1867258?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0813595835&pd_rd_r=9e3755d8-811a-11e9-9b3b-b9bbd55e85d0&pd_rd_w=sq1G0&pd_rd_wg=m37dV&pf_rd_p=18edf98b-139a-41ee-bb40-d725dd59d1d3&pf_rd_r=WPHT2J5EFR2KZ1WYVJEX&psc=1&refRID=WPHT2J5EFR2KZ1WYVJEX .


You can probably find pdfs online for those if you look mind.

Since no one posted yet, as an offshoot I'd recommend Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. It's actually a historical glimpse at space travel. It's not the story you might be looking for, but certainly a hilarious and interesting read. It's one of my favourites.

The report card you're referring to says we should invest more in our infrastructure - it has nothing to do with our knowledge of how to build bridges or more complex structures. That is a matter of funding over technical ability. Yes, I do think we can build complex structures in space. Because we wouldn't have to deal with gravity, in many ways it would actually be easier. This is not a theory in the slightest.

You should read about Lewis One, Kalpana One, and the books The High Frontier and 2081, as well as Gerard O'Neill's Physics Today article - that last goes into a lot of math on how we would build one, and building one was technically possible even then. Our engineering ability is not the question - our political will and funding is.

The Case for God and The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong are both good. The God Delusion is a simple breakdown and explanation of most major religious claims. Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by the Dalai Llama is an interesting book on ethics. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Cook is 150 funny and insightful pages on Islam. Under the Banner of Heaven is a shocking and fascinating account of fundamentalist Mormonism. The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan discusses religion, and Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot are my secular versions of holy books. And of course given the occasion, I can't leave out God is Not Great.

I recommend avoiding authors like Lee Strobel and Deepak Chopra. Both are essentially liars for their causes, either inventing evidence, or deliberately being incredibly misleading in how they use terms. Popularity in those cases definitely doesn't indicate quality.

This book was my textbook for my Spacecraft Dynamics course and honestly is awesome. It's not light reading, but if you just want to understand it, this is the book to read. There should be .PDFs online for free

1. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void- Mary Roach
   
2. 9
   
3. Humor, Science, Non-Fiction
   
4. This book is hilarious and explains space travel to the layman really well. It's a humor book that happens to teach you more than you wanted to know about space.
   5.Amazon

I recently read Packing for Mars which is a great read for anyone interested in the nitty gritty parts of human space travel you normally don't hear about.

In the end she states that with ~$500B NASA could take a manned mission to Mars. I'm all for it. I feel like there's a major brain drain in this country with the sciences taking a back seat to defense.

I really liked The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking. It gives you a perspective of string theory, multiverse, tons of stuff about the universe, origins of the universe, and the philosophy of science that is ment for more entertainment and informing than dense physics literature.

If your looking more for space stuff there is Space Chronicles by Neal deGrasse Tyson

tl;dr: Yes. You gain additional velocity from a spinny Earth by launching east from the equator versus launching from Cape Canaveral, which either means you can use a rocket with less propellant (cheaper) or put more mass in orbit.

Yes. Dig this latitude map. I'm not sure when what we're talking about becomes actual Rocket Science, but we're close.

Check out this link regarding the Delta V (that's delta vee and not delta five, which makes googling for this stuff suck beyond imagination). The idea is that by launching east at the equator you get more of a velocity boost from the rotaty Earth than you do elsewhere. I compared the numbers I linked to in my (Sutton)[http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/0470080248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303169914&sr=8-1] and they disagreed, so I won't quote them. You can feed the difference in velocity gained launching east from the equator versus Cape Canaveral back into the Tsiolkovsky equation (and you can google that shit all day long) and eventually work out how much more mass you could've put into orbit if you launched from the equator versus Cape Canaveral.

You might also check out Wikipedia's article on Delta Vee and work to gain your own understanding of this, since I am absolutely not a rocket scientist.

Howard Curtis has a great book. You will be taught basic orbital calculations (speed, position, other orbital characteristics), and then move on to orbital maneuvers and patched conics. The book also introduces elements of rendezvous. I recommend the use of some software for any sort of orbital mechanics simulations and calculations. MATLAB is an easy tool to use If you familiarize yourself with the ode45() tool. It uses a runga kutta 45 approximation scheme to do the differential equation calculations.

https://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Mechanics-Engineering-Students-Aerospace/dp/0080977472

Dr. Tyson - Are you doing a book tour to promote Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier?

If so, will the schedule be posted on the Hayden website?

If not, and at the risk of bombarding the Hayden Planetarium with mail, is there a proper channel in order to get your autograph on said book?

Like most Redditors, I'd love to get it in person, but NYC is a bit far from San Antonio.

My copy is being shipped to me as we speak and I hope to start reading it as soon as tomorrow!

> about the acceleration you will get from big bombs out of the atmosphere.

Is not correct. They intended to use relatively small yield "pulse units" (they preferred to not use the word bomb). These were to be about 1-2 kilotons. Not even up the Fat Man or Little Boy yields. And even smaller, like 200 tons in initial take off from earth's surface.

A good read is the book "Project Orion" by George Dyson.

>Nuclear explosions have somewhat different effects out of an atmosphere

The propulsion was going to be from the plasma of the bomb casing hitting the pusher plate and the ablation of the oil layer pumped onto it. They were even planning on nuclear shaped charges to focus as much of this plasma toward the pusher plate as possible.

Yup, kinematics, basic orbital dynamics, and simple rocket equations are just algebra! Anybody interested should really check out one of the best Astro books out there: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610

I haven't read too many that would fit the bill, but the first ones that come to mind are:

• Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
  
• The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality (I haven't managed to read through the entire thing, but so far it is pretty good)
  
• Dragonfly: NASA And The Crisis Aboard Mir
  
• Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond
  
  If anything else comes to mind, I'll make sure to post it.

Excellent choice. Might I also recommend Pale Blue Dot, also by Sagan. It's my personal favorite of his.

excerpt

Amazon link

If you'd like to learn more, I highly recommend Carl Sagan's second book Pale Blue Dot. He goes over this topic in some detail. Its a fascinating read.

EDIT: Added link.

Okay, for sci-fi, you have to get The Culture series in. Put Player of Games face out.

I don't read a lot of space books, but Asteroid Hunter by Carrie Nugent is awesome. I mostly have recommendations for spaceflight and spaceflight history, and a lot of these come from listeners to my podcast, so all credit to them.

• Corona, America's first Satellite Program Amazon
  
• Digital Apollo MIT Books
  
• An Astronaut's Guide to Earth by Chris Hadfield (Amazon)
  
• Capture Dynamics and Chaotic Motions in Celestial Mechanics: With Applications to the Construction of Low Energy Transfers by Edward Belbruno (Amazon)
  
• Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration by Buzz Aldrin (Amazon)
  
• Red Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Part 1 on Amazon)
  
• Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War by Michael Neufeld (Amazon)
  
• Space Shuttle by Dennis R Jenkins (Amazon)
  
• The History Of Manned Space Flight by David Baker (Amazon)
  
• Saturn by Lawrie and Godwin (Amazon)
  
• Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Lovell (Amazon)
  
• Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz (Amazon)
  
• Space by James A Michener (Amazon)
  
• Encounter With Tiber by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes (Amazon)
  
• Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography by Arthur C Clark (Amazon)
  
• Fundamentals of Astrodynamics by Bate and White (Amazon)
  
• Space Cadet by Robert Heinlein (Amazon)

This was one of my favorite classes and I thought it was a rather good book to learn from. That being said you can probably find it cheaper than this.

http://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Mechanics-Engineering-Students-Aerospace/dp/0123747783/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1395292188&sr=8-2&keywords=orbital+mechanics+for+engineering+students

You will NEED to have a good grasp on the laws of motion and math/calculus. Otherwise you will just not be able to do this stuff.

These type of craft have been around for decades in the black world. It’s called electromagnetic-gravitics, or EMGs. Reducing the mass of a craft increases both its fuel efficiency and its speed, as force = mass x acceleration. Think of it as creating a bubble of your own local space-time. You create the bubble around your craft and then control the direction of that bubble and fly around like Glenda the good witch of the north in the wizard of oz. Or more accurately, as it was done in the ‘80’s movie, “Explorers”, staring Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, and Jason Presson.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorers_(film)

For more on this subject I suggest reading, “The Hunt for Zero Point”, by Nick Cook.
https://www.amazon.com/Hunt-Zero-Point-Classified-Antigravity/dp/0767906284


There have been other types of craft similar to this postulated.
Dr. Paul LaViolette has claimed for years that a different type of mass reduction technology was/is employed on the B2 bomber. One that uses plasma induction around the crafts body to reduce its air resistance.

https://www.amazon.ca/Computational-Fluid-Dynamics-John-Anderson/dp/0070016852

I'd recommend starting with this. Yes, it's from 1995 but the basics haven't changed. He walks you through the math for a not-so-simple solver and there's some sample code. Possibly Fortran but I can't recall.

Either way, it's a good way to get your feet wet. You can learn about the more advanced techniques later.

Few will read this but I highly recommend reading 8 steps to colonize the Galaxy.

The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316771635/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ZWAPBbT92H2SG

What you're suggesting is more advanced engineering than a lunar lander.

-Aerospace Engineer

EDIT: This book is really good at explaining the development of the lunar lander and it's really not that complex. (The book is slightly technical so a background will help you understand better). http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Lander-Developed-Smithsonian-Spaceflight/dp/1588342735

You will have to take my word for it. My library is a mess and I can't find my copy of "Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship"

Freeman Dyson explained how this result was exciting and started the line of research that started the design of this system. He indicated it created a stagnation layer that prevented the plasma from directly touching the metal. The only issue was radiative heat transfer and that was solved by making the plate a large heatsink and lowering the duty cycle of the impinging plasma.

To add, to this, one of the ways for humanity to harness Sun's energy is a Dyson sphere. However, there are A LOT of technical challenges to overcome. A good book I read about some of the challenges and possible solutions to harvesting energy from the Sun is The Millenial Project.

Good start. If you want to get more in depth, you should include tail, nacelle, fuselage, and other excressence drag items too.

Not sure if you're studying Aero or not, but if you want to learn more, this book is a personal favorite. Mechanics of Flight by Phillips is a good one too, more analysis oriented. Can't recommend either without a good knowledge base of calc and physics of course.

How's your calc/linear algebra? Rather than trying to answer specific questions, I recommend Fundamentals of Astrodynamics.

Its like 10 bucks and has pretty much everything you need to run a manned lander mission to Neptune.

FullFrontalNoodly guessed that you're trying to calculate a trajectory of a rocket launch. I'm going to assume he's right, but for the record, this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/0470080248

is a great resource if you want to learn about rocket performance.

I figured responding would be better than downvoting and what not. Here's a short list of some good textbooks to start with.


Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications: This is my favourite general fluid dynamics textbook.

Race Car Aerodynamics: Designing for Speed: Considered one of if not the best textbooks for race car specific aerodynamics.

Race Car Vehicle Dynamics: This is the defacto vehicle dynamics textbook. I don't think any F1 engineer out there hasn't read this.

Computational Fluid Dynamics: The CFD Bible.

PM me if you want ahem links to the digital versions. Sorry if I've been harsh earlier, everyone starts somewhere and some concepts aren't particularly intuitive. You've got the right attitude though, a better feel for aerodynamics will come soon enough.

Well lets see. This year:

• he published a book
  
• had an article published in a journal on foreign affairs
  
• is getting ready to host a reboot of Cosmos
  
• Continued to be the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
  
  When did you last contribute anything sensible to anything?

The first Muslim astronaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, from Malaysia had the problem of not knowing what direction to face when praying in orbit. A conference of scientists and scholars determined that facing the earth's surface would suffice.

I learned about this while reading Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. A rather interesting book about the difficulties and funny peculiarities of manned space exploration.

He's a neat guy. I really enjoyed Project Orion.

I was raised Christian and went to a fundamentalist highschool. I started questioning things when I realized my faith required me to suspend my rationality. Read some books on the historical accuracy of religious claims. My thought was always, "Well if what all these people say is true, it should hold up to rational scientific inquiry." The more I dug, the more I realized that it never could. I fought and fought with myself. Christianity (especially of the fundamentalist flavor) has this built in mechanism to dissuade disbelief. You are constantly indoctrinated to see any doubt that enters your mind as evil, sinful and to simply "pray the doubt away". I'm sure you know of this. Keep fighting, let reason and logic be your guide.

Some books that helped me on my way to breaking free:

A History of God by Karen Armstrong

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

I also recommend this youtube series by user Evid3nc3.

Those should give you alot to think about.

Remember the most important thing is to decide for yourself. Question everything and never take something as truth from authority simply because they are an authority. See if it makes sense, find the documented evidence that backs up the claims. The light may hurt at first.

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." -Carl Sagan

It's intended to be a textbook for the next generation of space systems engineers. The old books like Sutton mostly cover how to design conventional rockets. I felt like a more comprehensive book was needed.

The command module computer was much less powerful than a Game Boy, but then again it was physically integrated into every system on the ship and had the backing of serious computational stuff on the ground. The fascinating How Apollo Flew to the Moon mentions that at its peak the Apollo program was consuming half of the world's integrated circuit output.

Edit: fixed wording.

Though it isn't a toroid or a bernal sphere like O'Neill's designs, my station, Island One, is the Kerbals first home in space. It is the start of their progress in ensuring thriving continuation of their race, and bringing the benefits of space industry to Kerbal.

Future plans for my rebuild in .21 include a fuel depot, kethane refinery, vehicles for Mun/Island One transfer with kethane, and way less parts. All the batteries on the power module and monopropellant tanks on the housing module are killing me!

For the curious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill

http://www.amazon.com/The-High-Frontier-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X

Mods Used:

HOME

Salyut

KW Rocketry

Agreed. Griffiths has the best books for undergrad level E&M, Quantum, and particle physics. I cant recommend any of the classical mechanics or thermal books. if you want to try General relativity you can start with Taylor and Wheeler:
http://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Black-Holes-Introduction-Relativity/dp/020138423X

If you are okay with Calculus, I really liked Curtis' Orbital mechanics book. Real eye opener. The satellite paradox is especially cool.

Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students (Aerospace Engineering) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0123747783/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VEqXCbFAMVQ27

Neil Degrasse Tyson addresses #8 (#10?) in his book Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier. He makes the point that truly cutting-edge exploration and the necessary technological advances it requires is far too risky of an enterprise to make it a sound business investment. However, those same advances go on to benefit private industry and society as a whole.

Edit: The second #8... Probably should be #10.

Establish the properties you know and those you care about finding - Viscosity, thermal conductivity, molecular diffusion coefficient, fuel/oxidiser requirements (i.e. mass conservation) for example.

Here's a few things to think about:

• When analysing the working fluids, you'll care about properties such as temperature, pressure, specific volume, and enthalpy. You might need a pump/turbine to deliver your fuel or oxidiser, and worry about enthalpy throughout the cycle. See thermodynamic cycle of a reaction engine.
  
  
• When sizing your nozzle and throat area you'll probably at some point want to know you characteristic velocity C, which is the (chamber pressure)(throat area)/(mass flowrate). Chamber pressure is very much related to the heat of combustion and it would be nice to model this, either steady state or transient.
  
  
• To a mechanical engineer, the combination of pressure and temperature dictates how you design your chamber (thermal expansion near to joints/component interfaces, principal stress, oxidation, creep properties, are all important). You will be thinking about how to keep the walls of the chamber and nozzle cool - see how the Saturn V rocket engines (F-1 engines) routed their fuel around the nozzle, which pre-heats the fuel, and cools the nozzle so that it can survive the high temperature exhaust. Some engines might need thermal barrier coatings or ablative coatings. It would be interesting to analyse whether any of this extra thermal protection is necessary.
  
  I've just added a Reference Library with a few books on rocket engines.
  
  

• How to Design, Build, and Test Small Liquid-Fuel Rocket Engines (alternate link) - enthusiast primer on liquid-fuel rocket engine design, containing some basic math.
  
  
• Design of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines (NASA SP-125) - NASA design document originally written in 1967 detailing nearly every design consideration for large payload liquid-fuel rocket engines, containing empirically derived equations and advanced math.
  
  
• Rocket Propulsion Elements (George Sutton) - rocket design text which includes sections on hybrid rocket design, containing empirically derived equations and advanced math.
  
  

My favorite orbital mechanics book was like $9 when I bought it. Dover Books has a lot of good older books on math/engineering for dirt cheap, glad we used it in undergrad.

John D. Anderson writes amazing books, and his computational fluids dynamics book is a work of art.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0070016852?pc_redir=1406696573&robot_redir=1

BBC made an hour long documentary about this project and it's well worth the watch. It's available on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoLcJuBtOw

There's also a book written by Dyson's son, although I have not yet read it so I can't attest to how good it is. This is it here: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Orion-Story-Atomic-Spaceship/dp/0805059857

There is also a very good book about it by George Dyson who is Freeman Dyson's son.

https://www.amazon.com/Project-Orion-Story-Atomic-Spaceship/dp/0805059857

It is actually a plausible way to travel to another Star quickly.

Mary Roach touched on it in her book packing for mars. If you haven't read it I'd recommend it. Very entertaining and well researched.

In short, the answer is no. It came close to happening though.

http://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/1469235919

I love SMAD for spacecraft design! My go-to for orbits stuff (my professional specialty) is "orbital mechanics for engineering students" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0080977472?pc_redir=1396560153&robot_redir=1$ and the next one is "fundamentals of astrodynamics and applications" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1881883140?pc_redir=1396676486&robot_redir=1).

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by
Mary Roach is quite good. It follows the history of the manned space program, and the challenges to overcome before we send a mission to Mars.

There is a fairly standard set of data called "two-line elements", which describes the main orbital elements of the satellite. Wikipedia

Orbital elements describe the orbit of the satellite. "Fundamentals of Astrodynamics" by Bate, Mueller, and White is the best book for understanding this stuff. Amazon

A lot of satellites broadcast this information in plain Morse code, which you can listen to if you really want. There are lots of resources out there that aggregate this information for you already. CelesTrak, OSSI, SatObs

This is a great introductory source.

If you want to get more in depth, then you might want to start looking at books about lagrangian mechanics or Engineering textbooks.

For those wondering how you might go about doing this yourself, you have a few choices. Knowing a language useful for modeling can help. Even if it's "just" Python.

NORAD maintains a two-line element set database that is refreshed daily. What is a two-line element set, or TLE? Back in the 1960s, when punch cards were still used as a primary storage device for computational data, a format was needed for easily storing the orbital elements of a space object (typically a satellite, but it can be anything in orbit, for instance rocket booster debris). The orbital elements are mostly the same as what you're used to seeing in KSP, but there are a few additional ones that are required for accurately* computing the propagation of the orbiting object in real life. A TLE looks like this:

COSMOS 2463 [+]
1 36519U 10017A 18293.58648576 .00000043 00000-0 30755-4 0 9996
2 36519 82.9602 143.9870 0035918 330.7244 29.1897 13.71429387424689

The first line contains mostly metadata, the second mostly orbital elements and some additional information you'll need. The TLE's orbital elements are the following:

• Epoch
  
• Inclination
  
• Right ascension of the ascending node (also known as longitude of the ascending node)
  
• Eccentricity
  
• Argument of perigee (also known as argument of periapsis for any orbit, perigee is for Earth)
  
• Mean anomaly (fraction of the orbit that has passed since perigee)
  
• Mean motion (revolutions per sidereal day)
  
• Revolution number at epoch
  
• BSTAR drag term
  
  Now, the first and last two are not technically your classic orbital elements but we need the first to get an idea of when the data is applicable and the last one comes in handy for objects in the LEO which are subject to significant atmospheric drag compared to say, something in a geostat or geosync orbit that is so high up that drag is not as much of a factor.
  
  Putting these together is the more difficult part. For a classical treatment of the subject, I started with Fundamentals of Astrodynamics by Bate, Mueller and White. This is the older USAF Academy book and is interesting not only because it teaches how to compute a satellite propagation, but it gives you an idea of the strategic position of the USA during the cold war. A significant portion of the book deals with how an ICBM works. Since it is, after all, a space vehicle.
  
  If you want to get deeper into it, you then want to read something like Vallado's Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications which will get into more detail.
  
  Robert Braeunig's website gives a good summary of how all of this goes together, with information derived primarily from the first book I linked, although I will caution that the solutions discussed are not all numerically stable in the format in which they appear. There are many, many different ways to compute the solutions to a satellite propagation using the orbital elements.
  
  If you don't want to spend a few weeks trying to do this yourself (and it will take you that long, unless you're an absolute savant at this), fear not. David Vallado has written code that will do the orbital element calculation along with SGP4 routines for you. What is SGP4? Remember that the Earth is not spherical and there's that other large Moon thing that also orbits the Earth. This means that we can't really model a satellite's orbit like you do in KSP if you want an accurate solution. So, we have to include those perturbations in the final calculuation, which is what the code linked here will do.
  
  As far as I can tell, the popular stuffin.space website uses a ported version of the above code, available in javascript here. The other link I gave gives versions that will work in FORTRAN, C, C++ and MATLAB (because you just can't make it in modern Engineering if you can't do MATLAB. And you'll have to do MATLAB or you will not make it through the course).
  
  This should all get you started. I hate to admit it but I never would have taught myself all of this, nor would my personal bookshelves be as heavy as they are, if it weren't for KSP.

I thought it was around 20% c from the book for the Orion Project max speed. Did you read the book?

http://www.amazon.com/Project-Orion-Story-Atomic-Spaceship/dp/0805059857/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449250466&sr=1-1&keywords=orion+project

Looks like most websites reference 10% of c as the max speed. Wish I still had the book to look up what the scientists calculations were.

I read about it in Packing for mars - very interesting book, and full of information about space travel/exploration just like this.

If you want physical books (personally, I much prefer them to electronic copies despite being a millennial), check out Dover books on Amazon. They publish old textbooks for $10-$20, so you can pick up a bunch for a lot less than you would usually spend on a single textbook. Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, for example, is an old U.S. Air Force Academy textbook that will teach you a lot of basic rocket science and orbital mechanics.

Some less mathy but still very interesting and semi-technical options are How Apollo Flew to the Moon and To Orbit and Back Again.

Read Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. She does a great job explaining the difficulty of surviving space flight, including the lessons learned from the Challenger explosion.

There is a whole chapter in here about pooping in space. It is interesting and hilarious. There is also a whole chapter about sexing in space too.

Mars One is a company that is dedicated to doing just that. Also be sure to check out The Case For Mars.

Play Kerbal Space Program (seriously). Then pick a book (like this one), it's a much better way to go.

Indeed, but it's actually from Neil deGrasse Tyson's new book: Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier. It's really good, but I'm only a quarter of the way through.

Yes, Mary Roach actually wrote a book called [Packing For Mars] (http://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/0393068471) where she interviewed a few astronauts and it turns out it's actually very possible. Let's say you are working on something and not really paying attention and your body will kind of reassess where "down" is. So when you turn around and don't see yourself oriented the way you thought you were it makes you feel like you are up-sidedown.

In that case, the general bible for rocketry is Rocket Propulsion Elements, and it's the best place to start working these things out. https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/0470080248

BMW is probably the best intro book I've seen. Doesn't cover the space environment or propulsion as much as this book though.

This is the best book i ever read:

How apollo flew to the moon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1441971785/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Best to start with the Ur-book: O'Neill's "The High Frontier" https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X

> Meanwhile, we could be researching a technology right in front of us quickly that can benefit us now, help us better exploit resources we do have, help us get to that distant technology faster, and utilize that distant technology once it's time.

Arghh, this is indicitive of such a broken ideology. We can do both. America, alone, could do ALL OF IT if we cut the DoD budget by as little as 20%. And I'm not even suggesting that America does this alone.

I want those other things too, I want research on solutions to global warming and cancer and AIDS and dead puppies, but there's no reason we can't also colonize space.

Please, I'm begging you in solidarity as a fellow human being, do some reading.

Start here but keep following the references and allusions to other sources and, if you've got the fortitude for it, to hard research studies. I can point you in other directions if you like, but that's my personal favorite starting point when suggesting education.

And if you're too lazy to do that, at least look at the goddamn numbers.

> we're so far from an awesome Mars colony....
> I won't see it in my lifetime

You should read The Case For Mars next.

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/0684835509/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266988147&sr=8-1

A great relevant book from the guy narrating this:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Hunt-Zero-Point-Antigravity/dp/0767906284

BMW (the book above) is the standard intro astrodynamics book. BMW was updated though and I think the following modern book is a great upgrade to an intro book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486600610/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687462&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0080977472&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1NCCS2QNN7XXT6N691HX

http://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Mechanics-Engineering-Students-Aerospace/dp/0080977472

'Distances' in space are odd, even though the distance between two points may be further than another trip, it may not take that much more effort to get there. The Moon is far closer than Mars, and takes a few days rather than a few months to arrive, but I hear you need about the same size of rocket. Distances can be measured in required Delta-V, or change in velocity. Heinlein, a mid 20th century science fiction author (Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land) said, “Reach low orbit and you’re halfway to anywhere in the Solar System.”

'The point of Heinlein’s maxim is that the same amount of energy it takes to go from Earth’s surface to Earth orbit is roughly equivalent to the energy required to travel from Earth orbit to the planets. The point is that if you can get to orbit, you have the capacity to also reach most of the solar system.' Source

So, the Moon isn't necessary any easier to get to than Mars is, barring problems with months of radiation exposure, low gravity exposure, and additional effort required to launch from a planet with a larger gravity well and atmosphere.

In The Case for Mars the author explains a few resources that Mars has which allow synthesis of fuel for both rockets and internal combustion engines, growth of food, and with a not-insignificant amount of planning/science/care, become self sustaining far easier than a moon colony could.

Spaceflight Dynamics by Wiesel has a section on optimal gravity turns if you're interested in the math. What it boils down to is you perform a very small angle turn as you leave the launchpad and then follow your prograde until you're in orbit. The math is in figuring out what that angle should be for your desired orbit. I read that book as a library loan, but I can look up my notes if you want more details.

I've been reading Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module. Incredibly fascinating book. Covers everything about the Lunar Module from design to manufacturing to the actual flights. What I enjoy most about it is how personal the book feels. Since the author is narrating the book through his own experiences, you not only get a sense of the type of thinking that led to the creation of the numerous systems, but also the kind of people these engineers, technicians, designers, etc. were.

Here is the book if you’re interested:
https://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/1469235919

It’s surprisingly funny. Also I stretched the point a bit by making the post about air force vs. civilians. It’s more about personality type and how the person responds to stress.

A bit longer, but all are solid suggestions, and although I could add two dozen more, I'm sure others will take up the cause.

• What the dog saw, by Malcolm Gladwell
  
  
• Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre
  
  
• 
  God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
  
  
• The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris
  
  
• The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein
  
  
• Super Freakonomics, by Levitt & Dubner
  
  
• The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
  
  
• The Case for Mars, by Robert Zubrin
  
  
• The Value of Nothing, by Raj Patel
  
  
  

> one thing I always found amusing was that "rocket science" was orders of magnitude simpler to calculate than a simple two link piston turning a flywheel.

Are you certain you're not confusing rocket science with ballistics space dynamics?

Not sure what your mathematical background is, but Fundamentals of Astrodynamics is a highly popular introductory textbook for $18.

I loved his book: The Case for Mars

Not an engineer (yet) but I've found this book to be often referenced and is a good read.
http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114

Also on the technical side, if you want some of the inspiration for the mission architecture, try The Case For Mars by Robert Zubrin. For an insightful critique of TCFM from 18 years later, try The International Mars Research Station by Shaun Moss.

I recently read a book, titled, The Hunt for Zero Point that discusses Die Glocke. I wrote a review of the book, where I state that Nick Cook seemed to be a bit too ready to accept the claims of researcher Igor Witkowski. While, I think that Witkowski's research is interesting and merits study by anyone interested in this subject. I only wish that he (Witkowski) would find a way to provide the world with copies of the documents that he claims to have read that led him to the conclusions that he makes about Die Glocke.

As has been pointed out already, there really is no evidence to prove that such a device even existed. But the rumors of it are indeed intriguing. Put quite simply, we need more tangible evidence.

well to understand basic orbital mechanics, I got my hands on Fundamentals of Astrodynamics which I love, and you can get from there the basic newtonian motion of the planets, from there I don't know a good book to recommend on the concepts of relativity, but basically take the math presented in fundamentals of astrodynamics in the n-body equations and add a fourth dimension to the vectors, t, or time. As time is directly related to the vectors when dealing with the n-body equation.

I think at least, again I'm still learning about relativity myself.

Kerbal player?

If you're really diving into orbital mechanics, this is what I highly recommend: Fundamentals of Astrodynamics. "Bate, Mueller, White" is generally considered the intro textbook in aeronautical engineering. It's a long-time classic (and cheap!), and is written by three professors of astrodynamics at the US Air Force academy.

>"Develops the basic two-body and n-body equations of motion; orbit determination; classical orbital elements, coordinate transformations; differential correction; more.

>Includes specialized applications to lunar and interplanetary flight, example problems, exercises."

Hartle is really good but if that is beyond your abilities you can try Taylor and Wheeler. The only math you need to learn from this book is calculus. However, it wont cover the full theory of GR, it will just get you used to working with curved spacetime.

Whenever a movie is portraying a technical subject, they usually massacre the topic. I've a degree in Physics, I'm a computer techie for my day job, and I'm a huge science geek - so I cringe a lot at the movies. A LOT. Unless the most technical or scientific object in the movie is a stone hammer, in which case I may cringe only a little.

But whereas essentially all such movies get 100% of the technical topic wrong, Gravity is more like half-and-half. And the half that they "got wrong" was the one that would have made the movie boring and would have made large parts of the narrative impossible (or difficult to tell in a non-documentary). I was actually very impressed and excited with all the parts they got right. I loved it, all the while being very aware of the physical impossibilities popping up across the narrative.

Yes, I know about horribly expensive orbital plane changes, and Hohmann orbits, and the narrow re-entry window, and all that stuff, so don't even start it. If you want accuracy and physical realism, break out Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, by Bate, Mueller & White, and splurge on. But this movie ain't it, never was, never will be. And that's just the way things ought to be.

---

P.S.: The main topic of the movie was rebirth. Not gravity, not space flight. Rebirth. Learning to let go of past (as Clooney's character literally says at some point), and being born into a new life. There's even a fetal position with an umbilical cord somewhere in the movie (not literally, but broadly suggested by a lingering shot of Sandra Bullock), and then later all sorts of emerging from dark waters with red mud all around, in case the metaphor needed any more emphasis. It was not even too subtle.

As to what "gravity" is a metaphor of - well, it should be obvious by now.

A book I'm reading. http://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/0393068471

Full of fascinating tidbits.

• "Pale Blue Dot" by Carl Sagan
  
• "Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments"
  by Martyn J. Fogg
  
• "The ethics of Terraforming" by Robert Sparrow
  
  Google will get you the rest. Enjoy!

I can surely suggest you some books which cover a vast field of rocket science.

• Rocket Propulsion Elements by George P. Sutton, Oscar Biblarz
  
• Fundamentals of Astrodynamics by Roger R. Bate, Donald D. Mueller, Jerry E. White
  
• International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by S. Isakowitz, J. Hopkins, J. Hopkins Jr
  
• Elements of Propulsion: Gas Turbines and Rockets by J. Mattingly, H. von Ohain
  
  These are the same books which Elon musk used for self learning Rocket science.
  
  source: http://qr.ae/TUGfdA