/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

Easiest introduction (too simple, but a great overview):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-plasma-physics-controlled-fusion/dp/0306413329/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973723&sr=8-1&keywords=francis+chen+plasma

Better introduction (actually has real mathematics, this is like the Chen book but better for people who want to learn actual plasma physics because it doesn't baby you):
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Plasma-Physics-R-J-Goldston/dp/075030183X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404973766&sr=8-1&keywords=goldston+plasma

Great introduction, and FREE:
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/plasma.html

Good magnetohydronamics book:
http://www.amazon.com/Ideal-MHD-Jeffrey-P-Freidberg/dp/1107006252/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974045&sr=8-1&keywords=ideal+magnetohydrodynamics

Great waves book:
http://www.amazon.com/Waves-Plasmas-Thomas-H-Stix/dp/0883188597/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974079&sr=8-1&keywords=stix+waves

Computational shit because half of plasma physics is computing that shit:
http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Plasma-Physics-Applications-Astrophysics/dp/0813342112/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974113&sr=8-2&keywords=tajima+plasma

http://www.amazon.com/Plasma-Physics-Computer-Simulation-Series/dp/0750310251/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404974148&sr=8-1&keywords=birdsall+langdon

Then there are also great papers, and I posted some links to papers in a previous post, but if you're asking to start, you want to start with Chen (and if it's too simple for you, move onto Fitzpatrick or Goldston). I also forgot to mention that Bellan and Ichimaru also have great books for introductory plasma physics.

EDIT:

I'd also like to add that I love you because this subreddit almost never ever mentions plasma physics.

Are you asking about purely the shape? This is actually an exceedingly hard and narrow topic of interest. Specifically, mostly military in nature.

The best open literature resource I have found regarding this top is Simmons' book: [https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Exhaust-Plume-Phenomenology-Simmons/dp/188498908X]

There's a huge piece of the puzzle that is based on radiation - excitation of species (dependent on propellants) in the exhaust plume and the associated spectral emissivity. It helps that you have one piece of the puzzle, the engine side (geometry, operating conditions, propellants, exhaust gas properties (from simulation)). The other piece of "visual properties" then depends on what type of detector you are using -- human eye, IR detected, space based detector. Then you have to account for attenuation of the different spectral lines in the atmosphere.

> is there anyway to calculate, for example, the total length of the plume?

Here you is where you start to ask, "as seen by what/whom?".

Of course, a great place to start is to just approach as a purely gas-dynamics problem. Even then you are starting to get into turbulence modeling due to mixing with ambient air at some downstream point. If you are approaching this problem, I would start simple (ignore all the hard stuff and improve from there).

Programming is a great background to have, but as you wander into the realm of CFD (fluids-physics based programming), I recommend reading up on numerical methods and modeling! The resource I used was an old purple-covered book about Numerical Methods in Fortran. Modern day resources are likely both more accessible and up-to-date. Coding is one piece, numerical methods is another piece, computational fluid dyanmics (representing physics/fluids with equations) is another piece. It's a long and fun road, good luck.

One interesting story that is brought up in the plume identification problem from space-based detectors is: How do you distinguish between a rocket launch and an oil-pipeline fire? Hydrocarbon/Oxygen|Air combustion products are similar and bright. One instance of this was when US-based space-detectors identified a large rocket launch out of a foreign territory that turned out to juts be a large oil fire. Obviously modern improvements have been made, but interesting cross-over phenomena.

They probably get cited too often as the best fluid mechanics books (at least for aerospace purposes), but John Anderson's books are a really good set to learn from as they have a really nice, linear progression of info. If you get several of them, you'll probably notice a fair bit of overlap in the early chapters since they're written to be pretty self-contained.

Jack Moran's book is also a really good intro and lead-up to computational approaches, with Laney providing a good second step down that line.

You might find Seitzman's lecture notes to be helpful.

http://seitzman.gatech.edu/classes/ae3450/

http://seitzman.gatech.edu/classes/ae3450/outline.html

When I took 3450, we used the blue and orange book (probably the one Jagoda is pulling questions from). It's actually selected sections from two separate books compiled specifically for that course. I thought the second half about gas dynamics was pretty good, so you might want to look for that as well.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0131206680

If it's any consolation, the gas dynamics portion of the class isn't hard so much as incredibly tedious. Just a couple monster equations and the rest is just ratios. Figure out which ratios you need and how to manipulate them and you'll be good to go.

Aside from that, study and pray to the curve. Good luck!

Then get ready to have your socks knocked off. I'm a plasma physicist.
My entire career is studying plasmas.

There are actually a few of us over at /r/askscience.

Want to know more about the topic?
How much math do you know? A lot? Cool. Check out Chen's Intro to Plasma Physics book. It's what most all physics students are introduced to the topic through.

Not a physics or math major? No problem. I really recommend Eliezer's book The Fourth State of Matter. It's written for anyone that wants to know more about the state of matter that makes up 99% of the universe and is pretty math free.
I actually gave my parents a copy when I told them what I was going to graduate school for.

The American Physical Society (APS), the big professional organization for physicists all over the US, even has a special Division of Plasma Physics (DPP). Check out the site, especially the "links" and "education and outreach" sections for more info.

Send me a PM if you ever want to talk about it.

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.

Interesting, I have this book. It's actually pretty good, although it is definitely aimed at breadth, and not depth. It goes over some basic principles, but the main thrust (hyuk hyuk) of the book is to discuss the properties of rocket plumes, themselves, and some of the analytical codes that are available to model them. It goes into decent coverage, but it is definitely a survey book. But for only $30, it's not a bad buy.

Amazon Link

Example

Course: Intro to Gas Dynamics

Textbook: Modern Compressible Flow with historical perspective, John D. Anderson Jr.

How useful is this textbook for future courses as a reference? Should I buy it new or used?

Haha, one of the last pages of Blundell and Blundell has a derivation for the radiative forcing formula. We didn't do this chapter with Statphys 1 though. Would have solved my doubts 2 years earlier.

Very good book on thermal physics though, only thing it missed in my eyes was the 1D Ising model. Amazon

I used Blundell and Blundell for a senior level statmech course and really enjoyed it.

For thermo/stat mech, the standard undergraduate texts are Schroeder (http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Thermal-Physics-Daniel-Schroeder/dp/0201380277), and I guess Blundell & Blundell (http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Thermal-Physics-Stephen-Blundell/dp/0199562105).

For Quantum Physics the standard undergradate books are the quantum mechanics books by Shankar, Griffiths, and sometimes Messiah. I personally didn't like any of them, I learned from Cohen-Tannoudji but it is more difficult mathematically. For more advanced books you can look at Sakurai or Landau's book.

There is no real standard book that I'm aware of for Nuclear/subnuclear physics for undergrads (because it is really a graduate level book). But I think Griffiths has a book on particle physics if you like his quantum mechanics book. He does like to talk alot though just so you know.

This is the book I learned from

buy that and forget the course! :)

Also on the molecular fluids front, we have:

Allen and Tildesley "Computer Simulation of Liquids".

Bird "Molecular Gas Dynamics and the Direct Simulation of Gas Flows".

On one's shelf beside Batchelor, it can also be handy to have:

Chandrasekhar "Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability".

And I have a book for you, my well-heeled friend.
This should help you with your prose, which is a little pedantic.
Also this
because you kind of come off a little bit abrasive, you know with the condescending tone, and the thesaurus driven name calling and such. I am sure it is just a result of your giant brain being squeezed too tightly by your unfortunately semian skull. Anyway, if you ever decide that you actually want to learn stuff about fire balls beyond the basics (where you show gross conceptual errors), check out Zeldovich and Razier, a book we used in an actual graduate physics class.

When I took plasma physics as an undergrad we used Chen's book. Pre-requisites would be a real E&M course (using vector calc) and some related knowledge of fluids.

well you can read course curriculums, hell you can take all of MIT's aerospace engineering courses online for free im sure. they have lectures and exams available.

high level textbooks...after the calculus/physics ones?

http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Structures-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486485803

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Space-Dynamics-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486651134/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=514GSwPXTEL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR101%2C160_&refRID=1Z881GSF57615HXRYT1N

http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Aerodynamics-5th-John-Anderson/dp/0073398101/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463955973&sr=1-2&keywords=aerodynamics

http://www.amazon.com/Gas-Dynamics-3rd-James-John/dp/0131206680/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463956004&sr=1-1&keywords=gas+dynamics
important math is just calculus, differential equations, linear algebra. arguably algebra and trigonometry are the most used and needed to master.

no knowledge of any engineering is required for engineering students coming in.

btw astronomy is basically useless unless you want to do planetary science...orbital mechanics is a separate field

Thanks for compiling all the links to those books. As for the two you couldn't find here are my best guesses:

Cancer

• Possibly due to his interest in radiation, he may have discovered some references of radiation as a possible link to the cause of cancer.
  
  
• A family member/coworker may have died of cancer.
  
  
• Just out of sheer curiosity.
  
  "2 Galaxies"
  
  
• This may be a reference to determining the distance between two galaxies using "red shift" (Engelbert Broda published a paper earlier in 1954 called Weiten des Weltalls: Unsere Milchstraße und ihre Nachbarn [Ranges of the universe: our Milky Way and its neighbors] about this subject)
  
  
• This may also be a reference a few observations about galaxies colliding made in 1951 and 1954, stated here:
  
  • "A decade later Spitzer & Baade (1951) extended Holmberg's work by considering the removal of interstellar gas (a process now called "stripping") in high velocity collisions, which they argued should be common in dense clusters of galaxies. The stage was set for what is argueably the seminal observational paper in this field, Baade and Minkowski's (1954) work announcing the discovery that "the radio source Cygnus A is an extragalactic object, two galaxies in actual collision."
    
    I also found links to the rest of the Course Material:
    
    Heat and Thermodynamics - Zemansky
    
    Thermodynacis, Kinetic Theory, Statistcal Mechanics - Sears
    
    Kinetic Theory of Gases - Kennard
    
    Thermodynamcis: An Advanced Treatment - Guggenheim
    
    (Couldn't Find) Electricity and Electromagnetism - Hornell
    
    Elements of the Theory of Functions
    
    Advanced Calculus
    
    Complex Analysis - Lars Alfors
    
    Introduction to Electric Fields - Rogers
    
    Electromagnetics - Krans
    
    Communication Circuits Fundamentals - Smith

You should avoid choking the flow if possible. If you're stuck with a certain mass flow rate, try opening up the area to reduce the velocity (and thus Mach Number). The resulting shock formation will cause significant pressure loss. See the relations from NASA here: Normal Shock Relations. You'll find more detailed info here

For a slightly supersonic Mach number (M = 1.1) with flow terminating at a Normal Shock and assuming air under ideal conditions (gamma = 1.40), you can expect a total pressure loss across the shock of about 0.2% which is probably not a major problem. But this rises quickly for higher Mach Numbers. Check out this calculator if you want to try your own numbers.

For reference, you get a ~10% loss in total pressure at a Mach number of 1.58.

You should be able to assume isentropic flow everywhere but the shock (for which you can use shock relations to go from one isentropic region to the next). Pick up a copy of Anderson's Modern Compressible Flow if you want to learn more in depth.