Best aeronautics & astronautics books according to redditors

This https://www.amazon.com/Space-Shuttle-Operators-Manual-Revised/dp/0345341813

I read [this](The space shuttle operator's manual https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345307518/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_PqZSzb0EQ6P8F) religiously in eighth grade but never once did it make sense to bail out of a shuttle. The slowest it ever goes is 212 mph, and that's right before landing. There doesn't seem to be a point elsewhere in the flight plan or the emergency plans where that seemed more survivable than staying in the shuttle.

No, the Buran was actually an original design. In fact, the Russian engineers tried to make it look different from the American shuttle because they didn't want to be accused of copying, but it just so happened that NASA had already figured out the best shape for a shuttle and there was nothing different they could do. source

The New S.M.A.D

Google it, its the shit

Source : recently graduated aero/astro engineer

Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Space-Mission-Engineering-Technology-Library/dp/1881883159

Here's the line directly from the source ["Entering Space: Creating a space-faring civilization"] in the Wiki citation:

>In certain ways, Titan is the most hospitable extraterrestrial world within our solar system for human colonization. In the almost Earth-normal atmospheric pressure of Titan, you would not need a pressure suit, just a dry suit to keep out the cold. On your back you could carry a tank of liquid oxygen, which would need no refrigeration in Titan's environment, would weigh almost nothing, and could supply your breathing needs for a week-long trip outside the settlement.

>A small bleed valve off the tank would allow a trickle of oxygen to burn against the methane atmosphere, heating your breathing air and suit to desirable temperatures.

>With one-seventh Earth gravity and 4.5 times terrestrial sea-level atmospheric density, humans on Titan would be able to strap on wings and fly like birds. - (Just as in the story of Daedalus and Icarus -- though being more than nine times distant from the Sun than Earth, such fliers wouldn't have to worry of their wings melting.)

>Electricity could be produced in great abundance, as the 100 K heat sink available in Titan's atmosphere would allow for easy conversion of thermal energy from nuclear fission or fusion reactors to electricity at efficiencies of better than 80 percent.

>Most important, Titan contains billions of tonnes of easily accessible carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. By utilizing these elements together with heat and light from large-scale nuclear fusion reactors, seeds, and some breeding pairs of livestock from Earth, a sizable agricultural base could be created within a protected biosphere on Titan.

Try Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. It's a great work of philosophy and science from a secular humanist worldview, but Dr. Sagan's gentle and personable delivery makes it much more palatable than the works of Hitchens or other outspoken atheists.

Here's what is essentially the definitive excerpt from the book - I'm linking to a YouTube video because it really needs to be heard in Carl Sagan's own voice to be fully appreciated. I think they are among the most stirring words ever recorded in the history of humanity.

FYI, the newer version of SMAD is now called "Space Mission Engineering".

I'm in Power Electronics, but here's 2 that could be good by a Reddit Search:

-https://www.amazon.com/System-Dynamics-Katsuhiko-Ogata/dp/8131709345/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=

-https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Control-Engineering-Ogata/dp/8120340108/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=

Sounds like you should read the 1st, then the 2nd.

What I would suggest is to buy the paperback or cheapest used version you can, then bring it to work and keep it on your desk. If you have downtime, crack it open, read a chapter, take notes and write down stuff you don't understand and look it up on google if possible. That's what I do. I actually bought a cheap-ass book, so I just write notes right in it. I never did that in school, but I find it extremely easy because you don't have loose paper all over the place and you never have to figure out what you were having a question about because you point to the text that confuses you. And with engineer pay, $30-40 is basically peanuts, especially considering that if you actually knew that book front to back, you could probably see a $10k raise minimum, assuming it's relevant to your company.

It turns out that most of these fields have some fundamental ideas and you can learn a lot from a book, especially as you work with companies. I never understood why customers do things certain ways, then when I read about GCTs and Thyristors, I understood exactly why they want to do things a certain way. Had I read the book with no experience, I would've probably just skipped the GCT and Thyristor chapters because they're old and no one really wants to use them anymore in new designs, but I am glad that I did because every now and then that knowledge comes in handy and I am one of the very few young guys who has it.

I have a BSME, working in the space industry. The big thing I feel I was missing from my undergrad was orbital mechanics. To get the math, pick up the SME/SMAD. To get an intuitive understanding, pick up KSP. Randall is not wrong.

Your undergrad should otherwise have comparable material science, physics, mathematics and programming (matlab, python, perl, whatever) to have you on an even field. The rest of it is the time to obtain the experience.

A decade out and I can hold my own at work with any of the aero's.

There's a great book called 'The Parachute and it's Pilot' by a dude called Brian Germain which helped me grow through what you are learning now. The book solved all of my problems when it came to canopy flight and landings, hopefully it will help you too.

I think there are some free pdf files of it online but here's a link to the ebook version

https://www.amazon.com/Parachute-Its-Pilot-Ultimate-Ram-Air/dp/0977627721

Understanding Space: An Introduction to Astronautics Covers most of the basics pretty well. It's easy to understand and right there at the undergrad level.

source: am space studies major

It's a fascinating story, but it's not like NASA called the International Latex Company (Playtex) out of the blue a couple of weeks before the project and asked for a spacesuit.

Forgive me for any slightly mangled details. It's been awhile.

ILS (again, Playtex) won the contract for the Apollo suits in '62, but was forced to work as a sort of subsidiary of Hamilton Standard for three years. Hamilton didn't trust them to do the job so made it's own suit, submitted it in '65 and it was horrible. They blamed ILS and ILS lost it's contract.

NASA, not having a suit, threw an open competition. ILS engineers broke into their old offices at Hamilton, stole their designs back and designed a brand new suit over the course of weeks. It was the only competitor whose suit both fit through the door of the Apollo command module and didn't burst.

For more info, there's Fashioning Apollo (I haven't read it, but I've heard good things), and Moon Machines part five (really good).

If you want to get into the technical aspects, this was suggested to me by Ted Southern when I asked him about glove design: AAS History Series, Volume 24. I got the paperback for thirty bucks. It's $2000 now for some reason.

I am an ME major EE minor and would agree it is a better route to aerospace. But that need not stop you from studying aerospace topics!

I think an awesome space engineering (if you are interested in astronautics) book you can jump into without a lot of heavy pre-requisites is SMAD (http://www.amazon.com/Space-Mission-Engineering-Technology-Library/dp/1881883159/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462136211&sr=8-1&keywords=smad). If you are having fun it is easier to learn, rather than trying to plow through a calculus or thermodynamics book. Edit: But get the 3rd edition, not the most recent one.

Other really good options would be to get hands on experience building stuff, programming & wiring arduinos and building stuff at a hackerspace. Building a 3D printer from a kit would be a good starting point.

My husband did his masters in space systems engineering and SMAD was pretty much the bible. Maybe you can find it at a library near you.

I think the Space Mission Engineering and Orbit and Constellation Design and Management textbooks should have what you're looking for!

most of the costs come from developing the spacecraft and its life support systems, and then qualifying it to a level the operator feels safe with. 20 billion seems like a good number to wildy guess at.

if you want equations, they are in here https://www.amazon.com/Space-Mission-Engineering-Technology-Library/dp/1881883159

>Ganymede

Right off the bat I disagree. Jupiter gives off way more harmful radiation than Saturn, and because Ganymede is a vacuum, any colony would either have to be underground or be heavily, heavily shielded. Titan's atmosphere would do the same thing for colonists that Earth's atmosphere did for us: shield us from radiation.

> Stonger gravity

This is the only point that I agree would make Ganymede more attractive, but when you know what you're getting yourself into as a colonist in space, and humanity at that point has mostly likely already dealt with 1/6 g (the Moon) or 1/3 g (Mars), I really think this will be a smaller issue than it's made out to be.

> tons of water

That's great! I love water! But did you know...Titan also has a lot of water? Like, 40% of the planet is composed of water ice? And most likely contains subterranean liquid oceans of its own? This is a moot point when both moons are practically drowning in the stuff.

> better than Titan's atmosphere / cause a big explosion

Two words: positive pressure. If a hab is pressurized to the point that only air can leak out, this is a moot point as well. Not to mention that despite the presence of methane, the atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, and methane there exists in the same way that clouds and fog exist here. Not to mention that the methane in the atmosphere and other hydrocarbons provide a lot of volatiles that can be used as fuel, fertilizer, in industrial chemical processes, etc, etc. This a non-trivial advantage over Ganymede, and honestly, any other Ganymede-like satellite. The benefits of the presence of so many hydrocarbons to a colony's standard of living and economy would honestly be the number one reason to put one there in the first place.

> colonize the far side of a tidally locked one

Not a problem, thick atmosphere is the best shield at the best price.

> which as he said

This is one article. There is a lot of literature out there that might change your opinion on this.

Sorry for the lengthy response. I'm not at all salty, as the tone of this whole comment might sound. I'm an aerospace engineering intern, and near-future space exploration and (hopeful) colonization is an enormous passion of mine. While I think colonizing Ganymede is on its own merit a good idea (colonizing anywhere in space is a good idea), I think Titan is just a better prospect in comparison.

Cheers

We already know how to create energy with antimatter, the problem is "Where do you get the antimatter?"

Antimatter does have the highest energy to mass ratio of anything we know, but it is very scarce. Our universe is about 5% matter, 20% dark matter, and about 75% dark energy. Antiparticles exists in nature, from cosmic ray collisions that generate them and such, but not very much, and certainly not the amounts expected, which leads to a complicated and open question: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_asymmetry) of why not?

What's much more likely for the future is the harvesting of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3 which is the leader in energy per mass ratio (excluding the aforementioned antimatter) It could be mined from the moon and then used in fusion generators to become our future energy source. Additionally, there might be potential to mine it from the gas giants, which would turn places like Jupiter into kinda gas stations on our way out of the solar system.

On an interesting side note. Y Combinator, the folks that invested and created Reddit (Alexis, one of the founders of Reddit is now on their board I believe) just funded a new startup http://blog.ycombinator.com/y-combinator-and-mithril-invest-in-helion-yc-s14-a-nuclear-fusion-startup This is an interesting tactic because a big complaint among scientists is not that fusion is impossible, but that it is about funding. For example this chart was posted somewhere else on Reddit a few weeks ago: http://i.imgur.com/JyUZDe2.jpg

A great primer in this subject I'd recommend would be Entering Space I say it is a great primer because it did do a great job with things like Helium-3 and or how you would need to slow down your solar sail ship, etc. It is a good read and written by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin

Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization - Robert Zubrin

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1585420360

This is one of my favorite books of all time and I think this guy is some kind of former engineer for NASA (I could be wrong, I'm too lazy to fact check myself) but I do remember that all the technologies he discusses could be created today - there's a lot of stuff in the book that seems far-fetched but he says the tech exists to implement it right now.

I learned a lot about canopy piloting from this video and his excellent book The Parachute And Its Pilot.

Brian Germains book "The Parachute and its Pilot" is a really good book.

Here's a good place to start online.
https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/stsref-toc.html

Here's a documentary NASA made toward the end of the program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvaG0xDdP8g

Here are a couple of books that might help as well.
https://www.amazon.com/NASA-Space-Shuttle-Manual-Construction/dp/1844258661/

https://www.amazon.com/Space-Shuttle-Operators-Manual-Revised/dp/0345341813/

http://www.amazon.com/Shuttle-Operators-Manual-Revised-Edition/dp/0345341813 ?

I (still) have that book, and don't worry, you can still get one at amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Space-Shuttle-Operators-Manual-Revised/dp/0345341813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310444348&sr=8-1

This book is fantastic! By Jerry Sellers - Understanding Space: An Introduction to Astronautics + Website: 3rd (third) Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008UBGAVY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_wBCQAbVSJ0ZC5

It depends on exactly what he's interested in(propulsion, structures, controls, launch vehicles or satellites, etc) but check out the new SMAD(or old, for cheaper). It's a thorough book that covers the basics of practically everything and good enough to do initial designs. It could also be good to help find what he's interested in if he doesn't know yet.

Pricey new but not to pricey if bought used. I'd recommend getting it used or getting the older version. Paying the extra 100$ or more isn't worth it imo but as always that's up to you.

https://www.amazon.com/Space-Mission-Engineering-Technology-Library/dp/1881883159

Space Mission Engineering/SMAD is a pretty good general overview of space mission engineering and spacecraft design, if that's what you're looking for. That's the senior design textbook for my program, but it's written by a number of engineers at NASA and in the industry. Braeunig also has some good information on some basics of the science (and it's free), but it's mostly undergrad-level orbital mechanics and rocket propulsion.

Is there anything more specific (other than heat transfer) that you're looking for?

oh boy, thank you so much for this detailed response! This is exactly what I was looking for. Seems like I have plenty to go on. In case anyone else is ever looking at this thread I have to add one more to your list of general space systems books- SMAD. SMAD and Griffin's book have been my bibles.

If you're looking to build a mission from scratch, SMAD (Space Mission Analysis and Design) is a textbook / reference book that'd probably help quite a bit. It'd give you a good overview of most of what you need to know. It can also help you answer questions about ADCS systems before you know you have them.

The Case for Mars and Entering Space are excellent reading for anyone interested in the future of space exploration. Or blowing up kerbals.

Don't forget a few commercial manuals as well.

Thanks these will be a big help. I found a 3d model that had everything I was looking for, but it was kind of pricy, https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/space-shuttle-cockpit-3d-obj/833432

I bought one of these, and it has some really cool stuff, but was from before the glass cockpit redesign. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345307518/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1