Best aircraft design books according to redditors
We found 164 Reddit comments discussing the best aircraft design books. We ranked the 29 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 164 Reddit comments discussing the best aircraft design books. We ranked the 29 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
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
He can get a used copy of the Fundamentals of Astrodynamics on Amazon for just $16.95
If you want to really do your homework, start with the primary source. The name of these structures comes from Gerald K. O'Neill, and his work The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space.
I believe this book has been referenced at least once on the channel. I haven't read it myself, but you could do worse than starting there.
THE book is https://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Liquid-Propellant-Progress-Astronautics-Aeronautics/dp/1563470136
Could not have done it without that puppy!
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:
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:
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've seen a few people build small ones, and all I can say is think twice about doing this in your own back yard or garage. One group set fire to a building, and another had theirs explode injuring a person. The temperatures for even a small rudimentary one are quite high, and so are the opportunities to hurt yourself. Close neighbors are not going to be happy with the fire hazard or the noise.
You want at least one fluids class-thermal fluids for example-under your belt tho all the math was basically algebra. Best book I can recommend for understanding practical problems with various engines and the math is Aircraft Propulsion. Keeps the fluids math pretty low level as it wasn't required for a class that was both for Mechies and Aeros. Could do all the math in excel. It covers a wide range of engines along with the multiple stages for turbine engines.
Then I suggest you get to reading. There's thousands of steps.
https://smile.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517774718&sr=8-1&keywords=raymer+aircraft+design
https://smile.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Systems-Engineering-Approach/dp/1119953405/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517774756&sr=1-1&keywords=sadraey+aircraft+design
https://smile.amazon.com/Aircraft-Propulsion-Saeed-Farokhi/dp/1118806778/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517774825&sr=1-1&keywords=aircraft+propulsion
Unless you're using a rocket (not exactly electric), less dense air is a propulsion problem, not a solution. Jets and propellers both work by Newton's third law: thrusting air behind the aircraft causes an equal and opposite reaction that propels the aircraft forward. If your air is less dense, this means you're going to have to shoot it out the back at ever higher velocities to maintain speed.
Assuming you're using an electric turbojet, that is, a jet without combustion or a turbine. The compressor is driven by the electric motor. Let's say your compressor is 100% efficient... just to be very nice.
The power required for something like the Concord would be 4800 gallons of Jet A-1 fuel per hour at MAXIMUM efficiency around Mach 2. This is equivalent to 175 MW of power.
Let's say you just wanna fly for 30 minutes. This translates to 29.2 MW-hrs of stored energy. We'll use a nice lithium ion battery with 0.875 MJ/kg of energy density.
Your batteries alone weigh around 794,000 lbs. This is twice the weight of the entire Concorde jet.
In fact, this is heavier than any supersonic aircraft ever designed by far. And we haven't even talked about systems weight, propulsion, structures, avionics, passenger and cargo accommodation, and aerodynamic shape requirements. Not to mention any sort of cost analysis, which would most likely show that this would be hopelessly expensive.
Also, tail-less aircraft comes at a price. You'll burn more energy in control, or lose aerodynamic efficiency. No tail-less aircraft was ever tail-less for efficiency's sake.
For good sizing stuff, check out Raymer's book or for a more concise read, intro to aeronautics.
Buy this book - you can do the calculations yourself if you're interested in learning how they're done:
http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334804519&sr=8-1-fkmr1
It's cheap too.
Play Kerbal Space Program (seriously). Then pick a book (like this one), it's a much better way to go.
There is good summary on page itself but some points still.
On PS4 Orbital platform
On human spaceflight
On SSLV
On Venus orbiter mission (Shukrayaan).
Aditya-L1
MOM-2
Chandrayaan-3
Chandrayaan-2
On RLV LEX (Landing experiment)
On Semi cryogenic (Kerolox) SCE-2000 engine.
Edit: /u/AstrotalkUK I think the book they mentioned is this one.
https://www.amazon.in/Integrated-Design-Space-Transportation-System/dp/8132225317
/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:
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.
Core Curriculum:
Introduction:
Aerodynamics:
Thermodynamics, Heat transfer and Propulsion:
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
Engineering Mechanics and Structures:
3-4) Engineering Mechanics: Statics and Dynamics, Hibbeler
6-8) Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures, Bruhn -- A good reference, never really used it as a text.
G) Introduction to the Mechanics of a Continuous Medium, Malvern
G) Fracture Mechanics, Anderson
G) Mechanics of Composite Materials, Jones
Electrical Engineering
Design and Optimization
Space Systems
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
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
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.
A lot was studied for Shuttle (Developing an Icon dedicates a long chapter to it), but AFAIK transpiration cooling wasn't seriously considered.
Lockheed even warned NASA about the problems of ceramic heat tiles, but they couldn't come up with any better proposal quickly enough (read: over a 15 years period), and in the end there was no ready, usable alternative.
To my understanding, transpiration cooling shares some of same (dis-)advantages as regular epoxy heat shields: You get a hot expanding gas zone of varying thickness from the evaporating coolant liquid/epoxy, which is great – unless you're sitting in an airplane that needs the lift of its wings to maintain its course and attitude, and not flip over and crash.
BFS/ITS doesn't care, since it's not a space plane and doesn't need any lift, but for the manned space projects of the time it would've been useless – X-15, X-20, HL series, X-23, X-24, and all the other projects that culminated in Shuttle needed to be planes to fit Air Force requirements, and for Mercury/Gemini/Apollo it offered no improvement over epoxy shields.
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.
If you're willing to do a fair amount of reading and math, the obvious approach would be to dig into the rocket equation, the vis-viva equation, and Kepler's third law. More generally, an intro to orbital mechanics can give you lots of cool tools.
I'm partial to Fundamentals of Astrodynamics if you want a physical textbook.
I'd suggest getting Emily Lakdawalla's The Design and Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job when it's out. She has been for many years my go to writer for space related news all over the world.
The High Frontier by Gerard O'Neill is the book you're looking for. Its responsible for the O'Neill Cylinder and most of the ideas about space colonies used by Tomino in making Mobile Suit Gundam.
This book is filled with the equations and explanations you are looking for:
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics
You're welcome.
If you would like to learn a bit more about this kinda thing and the engineering behind spacecraft I can recommend a couple of good books:
How Spacecraft Fly: Spaceflight Without Formulae is a good intro.
If you are looking for a bit more Spacecraft Systems Engineering goes into more detail but requires some understanding of calculus. For both Google can be your friend for finding sources.
Flick through even just the first one and you'll gain a new perspective when playing KSP on what everything does and why it is needed!
What? No, it's a textbook.
For example:
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Methodologies-Transportation-Systems-Education/dp/1563474727/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462132386&sr=1-1&keywords=Design+Methodologies+for+Space+Transportation+Systems
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Vehicle-Design-Second-Education/dp/1563475391/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462132363&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=Space+Vehicle+Design%2C+Second+Edition+%28AIAA+Education%29+2nd+Enlarged+ed.+Edition
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 slopethick atmosphere in a deep gravity well. There is no Lagrange point, just the abyss.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:
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.
A ton of people come into aero not really knowing what to expect. As a freshman, my core labs/classes for aero all used Introduction to Flight. Not saying you should buy it (because it is an expensive textbook), but if you can find a pdf I highly suggest reading through it. It will give you an idea of what formulas are used, what kind of units you have to juggle and the basic concept behind the plug and chug work. If you do get into an aero program, good luck and keep your grades up. If you can come out of an aero program with a 3.5+ GPA you can most certainly get a dream job.
That’s really sweet of you to do that for your boyfriend. Some universities have an “Intro to Aerospace Engineering” course where they use John Anderson’s Introduction to Flight textbook. It’s a really great read as it tries to sum up all of the field in one book while also being really enjoyable to read both actively and casually.
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Flight-John-Anderson-Jr/dp/0078027675/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=introduction+to+flight&qid=1563239666&s=gateway&sprefix=introduction+to+flight&sr=8-1
It’s a little pricey (approx $130, but that’s normal for engineering textbooks), but I think it’s worth it for what it provides at a base level for a fresh aerospace student.
Best to start with the Ur-book: O'Neill's "The High Frontier" https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X
It's $12.45 on Amazon Prime.
Assuming an average dorm room ~12x19 feet and height of 8' (thanks google, despite silly american units), thats about 952 square feet of surface area. Measuring the Fundamentals of Astrodynamics book it's about 8.5" x 5.3", about 45 square inches.
You could cover all the walls, floor and ceiling of a dorm with 3044 books, which would cost about $37,900.
There's no message here, I just liked imagining plastering an entire room with this book.
i got a book for my Aerospace class. Been studding it for a year and a half. The more I read this book the more it gets better. I know it's expensive, but I've enjoyed it.
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Flight-John-Anderson-Jr/dp/0078027675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521233604&sr=8-1&keywords=anderson+introduction+flight
Modern Engineering for Design of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines. + 3.5 years of college education (Going into my last semester) + me being a dork looking at every SpaceX and rocket related resources I find.
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.
People never believe me, but I constantly tell them we're really good at building planes... as there is a lot of data to infer from, which is why we have several extremely, notable books. Rocket and space craft design are a grey area. The one that is always recommended first to everyone is "Space Mission Analysis and Design". Most colleges use it and it's #1.
I can't speak for this "Spacecraft Systems Engineering." The recommendations say it's a good supplement to the book I mentioned above-so that's a good sign. Would consider getting it afterward the one above.
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
A book I like a lot is Orbital Mechanics by Prussing and Conway
There's Fundamentals of Astrodynamics by Bates, Mueller and White. This Dover book is inexpensive.
I did a coloring book on conic sections and orbital mechanics. Mostly Kepler stuff and a little Newton. No Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation in this edition.
You might find what you're looking for in Emily Lakdawalla's excellent book "The Design and Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job".
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.
You need physics, not math. I would suggest to borrow/buy a general mechanics book (Alonso-Finn, Tipler, etc.) and read some if you are serios writing about Hard SF. Then there are specific books about artificial stations/worlds; like this classic “The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space”. Also, you need to take into account the Coriolis force if your station is too large. This wikipedia article is a good start.
As for the answer you were looking for: the acceleration is [angular velocity]^2 [radius], thus your problem is not exactly the radius but also the angular velocity. As you need a particular period of 34 hours the angular velocity is fixed to 2pi/(34 60 60) = [angular velocity]. Finally, you can find your radius from [your gravity]/[angular velocity]^2.
Not sure what your mathematical background is, but Fundamentals of Astrodynamics is a highly popular introductory textbook for $18.
http://www.amazon.com/The-High-Frontier-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X
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.
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.
These are usually senior year capstone projects that teams work on for a year or a semester. I believe this was the texbook recommended by the professor of the aircraft design course:
https://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114 . This was supplemented with lectures and professor aid/advice also. A lot of the time, students would talk to professors in the college that weren't in the course, but they had a relevant specialty.
I did the spacecraft and mission design project so I don't have any specifics for aircraft, but the book we followed was very thorough in how to design the mission. It wouldn't solve the mission for you, but it would give you the workflow, equations, and historical data to follow. Many times, we had to refer to our past classes to do analysis, so theres no real one book that will tell you how to design an aircraft, or at least explain all of the concepts of aeronautics and the design portion thoroughly.
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.
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.
Emily Lakdawalla is publishing a comprehensive book on the details of the engineering of Curiosity. It looks like it's out in May. She's a planetary scientist who writes for the Planetary Society, and I can't recommend her stuff highly enough. If it's for an assignment, a month and a half might be too long to wait, of course.
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.
There are also books on this:
https://www.amazon.com/High-Frontier-Human-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468075898&sr=8-1&keywords=the+high+frontier
and:
https://www.amazon.com/Colonies-Space-T-Heppenheimer/dp/0811703975/ref=sr_1_1?s=outdoor-recreation&ie=UTF8&qid=1468075904&sr=8-1&keywords=space+colonies
are you sure you cant use the second edition? // its ~3.5% the cost
(well when it comes out in june)
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:
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.
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.
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics (ISBN-13: 978-0-486-60061-1) seems to cover the basics.
Link:
http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407087354&sr=8-1&keywords=introduction+to+astrodynamics
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.
This book is quite useful and understandable with a bit of reading: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524583559&sr=8-1&keywords=orbital+mechanics
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.
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!
http://www.amazon.com/Intermediate-Mechanics-Materials-Solid-Applications/dp/9400702949#productDescription_secondary_view_pageState_1419115499922
Would you know if something like this textbook is futuristic enough? Or are there better angles to this field for that?
Thank you for pinpointing this so quickly! I was bringing up electrical engineering things and transformers and not this material aspect. You rock :)
Maybe not in the redesign but the old sidebar got the bibles:
Another great ressource is Nakka Rocketry webiste (http://www.nakka-rocketry.net/) for actual data.
Whatever you do please do not blindly follow popular youtube videos. At best they document decade old techniques that everyone has abandoned because they are unreliable, at worst plain dangerous.
Time to get the Bible out.
https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610
Maybe Fundamentals of Astrodynamics
Looks like you're missing one of the most important basic Orbital Mechanics books.
its so much of a GODDAMN shame that these were never made, could have been, but wasnt.
http://www.amazon.com/The-High-Frontier-Colonies-Apogee/dp/189652267X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1346594304&sr=8-3&keywords=high+frontier
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.
So, I graduated college with a degree in IT and took some calculus and geometry while I was there. I miss learning this kind of thing, and was wondering if there is a way to learn orbital mechanics as a hobby. If I pick up Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, would I be too in over my head?
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!
Here's info on Datcom
http://www.pdas.com/datcom.html
This guy has done some development for Datcom which will make it easier to use, generate plots and visualizations of your aircraft. Probably worth the $29.
http://www.holycows.net/datcom/
Raymer's book used to come with basic spreadsheet but he's done a lot of development since I was in school. His book and software would probably be safest/easiest to use. RDS is the software. I've never used it, but the book is very popular.
https://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-RDS-Student-Conceptual-Education/dp/1600869211
Je me suis débrouillé au final et j'ai à peu près acheté les mêmes livres plus d'autres en français :
J'en ai eu pour un peu moins de 100€ mais là au moins je suis blindé pour te faire toutes les trajectoires que tu veux :)
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)
http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114 is a good book on aircraft design. Focus is more on larger scale aircraft than UAVs, but the principles are similar
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics
>I can't speak for this "Spacecraft Systems Engineering." The recommendations say it's a good supplement to the book I mentioned above-so that's a good sign. Would consider getting it afterward the one above.
I have both the SMAD and this book and I can recommend both. They are both really good books imo and have lots of information for the preliminary design of spacecraft and are definitely very good to learn the basics. I think the main difference between the two books is that the SMAD is originally from the United States and Spacecraft Systems Engineering is originally from the UK, its pretty interesting to see how some problems are approached slightly differently across the globe. The general story is about the same though. However note that if you really want to go into detailed design I think more specialised books/papers are needed.
> 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.
People who think we understand everything about physics and how "science works" don't belong on r/conspiracy either.
It's not a matter of blindly believing, it's a matter of questioning and trying to find explanations for phenomena that we don't totally understand.
We don't understand why or how this works, if it does at all, and we don't understand why different people conducting the same experiment can get different results at different times.
It seems you're stuck in an antiquated physics paradigm like so many others.
I highly recommend this book by Paul LaViolette for a profound introduction to different exotic technologies.
axolotl_peyotl: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link
People who think we understand everything about physics and how "science works" don't belong on r/conspiracy either.
It's not a matter of blindly believing, it's a matter of questioning and trying to find explanations for phenomena that we don't totally understand.
We don't understand why or how this works, if it does at all, and we don't understand why different people conducting the same experiment can get different results at different times.
It seems you're stuck in an antiquated physics paradigm like so many others.
I highly recommend this book by Paul LaViolette for a profound introduction to different exotic technologies.
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.
There are interesting papers from the early 70s about multiple directions that original shuttle design work was going into and they included metallic TPS / internal fuel tanks / reusable flyback boosters and many more interesting technologies.
There is a great MIT course on that subject http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/video-lectures/lecture-7/ and the book http://www.amazon.com/Spacecraft-Systems-Engineering-Peter-Fortescue/dp/0471619515
Is a good place to start
I wanted to post this here, I screen-captured the March 9, 1992 edition of Aviation Week in which they talk about many things, including but not limited to:
This is basically saying that the B2 uses UFO-technology. This was my biggest surprise, since I always thought B2s were jet-fuel aircrafts. Turns out they use the jetfuel for landing/take-off but can then switch to the electric apparatus.
Anyways, food for thought and certainly very insightful documents.
I've originally come across this article in this book.
For those who are skeptical about UFO technology: Watch this frightful documentary about the Fluxliner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkVNv7PbeH8
An upvote for the BMW book (link: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Roger-R-Bate/dp/0486600610/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1309920300&amp;sr=1-1-spell )
I don't think so. According to [This Book] (http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Antigravity-Propulsion-Classified-Technology/dp/159143078X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=undefined&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=antigravity+book) the author states the required voltage to produce the typical ionic wind is hundreds of thousand to millions of volts. The book seems to be scientifically grounded, but it's on the fringe of mainstream science - although the [New NASA EmDrive] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive) may start shedding some light into the weird effects seen in the book.
Either way, to my knowledge it takes a crazy high voltage that can't be reproduced by solar panels alone. According to the book above, it takes hundreds of thousands of volts, maybe even into the millions, to create a strong enough ionic wind to achieve real lift. However, Dr. Brown was able to show lift in this [Video] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye5W28OihN0). Enjoy! :)
Design: http://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Design-Conceptual-Approach-Education/dp/1600869114
If you want to build: http://www.sigplanes.com/SIG-Kadet-LT-25-Kit_p_68.html
If you just want to fly: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__8359__axn_floater_jet_w_servo_motor_esc_epo_pnf.html
Depends on what part you want to do- Electronics, airframe, team management?
Google Paul LaViolette, Richard Boylan, or Edgar Fouché plus the term "antigravity". I don't know how accurate their stories are but they seem to be the sources of a lot of these notions. LaViolette's book describes all kinds of ways that these craft would work.
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.
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
BMW is probably the best intro book I've seen. Doesn't cover the space environment or propulsion as much as this book though.
Sorry, but no. I took orbital mechanics with Dr. Curtis himself and his book is pretty awful.
Instead I recommend what's been used for decades as the introductory text to orbital mechanics: Fundamentals of Astrodynamics by Bate, Mueller, & White (called 'BMW' for short). Not only is this text better in every objective sense for learning basic space mechanics, but you can buy it for $15. Curtis' book will run you the textbook racket price of $90.
I can surely suggest you some books which cover a vast field of rocket science.
These are the same books which Elon musk used for self learning Rocket science.
source: http://qr.ae/TUGfdA
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.
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.
https://www.amazon.com/Space-Propulsion-Analysis-Design-Website/dp/0077230299/ref=sr_1_1
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My coworker has it.
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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!
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.
The handbook I use at work is this one but it's a textbook so it can be a little pricy. If you're serious about it though...
Also, that's more payload design than rocketry.
Bates, White, and Mueller are all co-authors of this book: Amazon link, which is commonly referred to as the "BMW" book because of their names.
Side note - it looks like there's a second edition, so might want to go for that. The first edition is fine so far to me, probably just has some outdated numbers or notations.
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.
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?
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&amp;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&amp;pf_rd_t=201&amp;pf_rd_i=0080977472&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_r=1NCCS2QNN7XXT6N691HX
http://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Mechanics-Engineering-Students-Aerospace/dp/0080977472
> Ok, so you are using divine revelation. The problem is that I can't tell your revelations from those of someone who is just crazy.
Fair enough. I'm not asking that you accept "my revelations" merely that you go about discovering your own.
> Right. Like with most conspiracy theories, I don't think you understand how big this conspiracy would need to be. You are claiming that an entire field of science is being hidden from the public. Actually, not just the public, but also all other scientists, and in every country. This isn't a specific secret known only to a few people.
The US government classifies an estimated 560 million pages of documents each year. For scholars engaged in political, historical, scientific, or any other archival work, the grim reality is that most of their government’s activities are secret.
I do understand how big the conspiracy would need to be, and it is that big. Except you overestimate the difficulty of maintaining such a massive conspiracy. Once you own all the universities and control almost all of the scientific funding dollars it's not difficult to control, filter, and restrict the direction of mainstream science.
Except it's not all hidden some of the information is available through document research investigation. It's only hidden in academia it's not hidden within the bowels of corporate and classified scientific research which is where all the money and research is really happening. It's all happening within the military industrial complex outside of the view of public. What you think of as "modern science" is merely the old science. You don't realize how big the conspiracy really is, we're dealing with a "breakaway civilization" here not just some hidden research.
The world's top scientists are all involved in classified research operations operating inside the military industrial complex and you've never even heard these scientists names because they were trained inside the classified projects from an early age, trained in the real physics, the real science. They have the "real physics" that is denied to the public and they are using it to achieve things that would blow your mind.
Since I jused the psi research as a data point that's where I'll get you started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingo_Swann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Targ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Puthoff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project
etc, but this is just the old stuff from 30+ years ago. Billions in funding are still pouring into these bizarre psi projects.
> Sooo, does the James Randi Education Foundation just kidnap and disappear everyone who succeeds at their million dollar challenge then?
of course not. The physicists involved in the deep black projects who have the "real physics" are able to achieve all sorts of phenomena that would win Randi's prize, however they know what would happen to their families and themselves if they tried to go public with any of the information, and they know that it would never make it into the tightly controlled scientific journals anyways. They would be putting their lives in great peril without the hope of actually accomplishing anything.
http://www.afterdisclosure.com/2011/04/breakaway.html
http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Plain-Sight-Beyond-X-Files/dp/096779952X
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Antigravity-Propulsion-Classified-Technology/dp/159143078X
lets not let the topic of conversation drift too far away from religion though.. I don't wanna get too off-topic. If you want to know more about what I'm talking about here just message me.
> 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.
https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610
The math for the parched comics stuff actually is not that hard. It's just know what you are looking for and plug it in. Basic algebra. Once you stray from that and do the cordinate transformations and into the the non patched conics stuff it gets a lot harder.
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
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."
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.
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.
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.
That sounds great! Learning pro-e and model based definitions has been interesting. they don't teach either at our school, so it's been great getting paid to learn that and Gd&t for industry.
I'm on a mechanical design team for a liquid rocket engine. So far I've mainly been turning old drafted drawings into modern cad models with drawings that fit the company's current standards. Pretty surreal to see my name in the company title block.
I too bought this textbook on rocket engines which helps answer a lot of questions.
Let's do a bit of numbers.
Let's for the moment assume you smashed several comets of water into the planet to build your atmosphere. You only have 40% gravity so you're only going to get 40% atmospheric pressure. To get pressure that low on Earth you have to go to 22,000 feet or 7,000 Meters. In case you don't know, there aren't any cities at that elevation as almost all people prefer to be able to breathe. The highest cities on Earth hover around 5,000 meters, 2,000 meters below your baseline number.
How long the atmosphere lasts is currently unknown despite your assertion:
>Incorrect: The atmosphere strips away over millions of years, more then slow enough for an atmosphere to form.
You didn't cite your source for that assertion. What we can state confidence is the current loss rate is being measured at the end of a very long loss process. If you look at vacuum pressure curves you'll see that most of a gas is evacuated early on - getting a really hard vacuum at the end takes a lot of time which is when the Mars MAVEN project measured.
Did I forget to mention that Mars doesn't have a magnetic field? The magnetic field steers the solar wind away from Earth so that when the sun hurls a bolus of hydrogen at us every so often, it doesn't strip away our atmosphere. Your 40% gravity is going to need that magnetic field help and it doesn't have it. Yes, there are ideas floating around on how to counter that issue but right now they're best labeled ideas, not fact.
You write:
>Incorrect: the moon has very little in the way of useful materials, which is why people are interested in Mars in the first place.
Absolutely no idea where that comes from. Hell, the Lunar astronauts brought back a large chunk of Anorthosite they found just lying on the surface. We've known for quite some time that there are plenty of minerals on the Moon. The astronauts weren't lucky, there's stuff all over the place. It's just damn expensive to get to so it stays put for now. It shouldn't be a surprise - the moon formed from the earth after all.
>Just silly: Do you have any idea how much energy it would take to move orbiting cities?
Yes, it would take huge amounts of energy. Fortunately, we have lots. You can go nuclear or solar - your choice.
Until it was killed by the 1963 atmosphere nuclear test ban, the United States had been working on Orion. Orion would have launched a skyscraper into orbit. When they were designing Orion, they built this building to keep the designers' sense of scale as to what nuclear power made possible. The building was scaled to be a cross section of the rocket. To reinforce the point, they were going to fly a barbershop with old fashioned barber chairs because mass wasn't a launch constraint as it is today. Cities are made up of skyscrapers and since we're mining the moon, you can have as many as you want. And you don't have to lift them off Earth like Orion was going to.
Don't like nukes? You can use solar power to sail around the inner solar system. Extra-terrestial solar won't generate power like nukes will but it will provide the energy necessary if you're not in a hurry.
I refer you to High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space for lots of details.
My last point.
Your call to remove my post is censorship to enforce a point of view. I may be wrong or you may be wrong or we may both be wrong but censoring each other isn't the path to truth.
If you don't agrees with a point a view, refute it. The truth emerges from that process. Calling for censorship to preserve a point of view you're SURE is right is what the Catholic Church and the Soviet Union had in common. We're seeing a resurgence in the call for censoring speech from people who really don't know or forget their history.
Read the books I have mentioned.. there is a lineage of the technology that has been developed.. it's all out there.. people just have to put the pieces together in the right way. That's no small task though because there is so much disinformation mixed in.
Here are videos and books to check out... this one is mind boggling. My dad witnessed a saucer a couple years after this incident in Northern Washington State in the US. Remember though, it's not aliens that is disinformation to lead us the wrong direction.
Westall 66
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ih31ehCarM
Billion Dollar Secret
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_rX7f1jeMA
Veneration of the vector
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_VsLF2fGpU
Secrets of Antigravity propulsion - read the reviews - get the book
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Antigravity-Propulsion-Classified-Technology/dp/159143078X
There is much much more info,.. this is just a drop in the bucket.. this thing is so immense people can't fathom how big it all is. It's truly like 2 separate civilizations and we are all being distracted and pacified and the lie is different at every level.
Not really answering your question, but if you want some reading on trajectory and orbital mechanics, pick up a copy of this book. I skimmed it for an internship one summer and learned a ton. https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610
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.
It doesn't work like that. Go play Orbiter or Kerbal Space Program if you want a glimpse of the physics behind it, but you can't just "slingshot" it out into the abyss. You want to change something's velocity from low Earth orbit? You're going to need fuel.
Alternatively, you can get the Fundamentals of Astrodynamics for about fifteen bucks, but you need to know some calculus.
I'm very glad to see this kind of knowledge come in the public view - and in a big way too. NASA validating these results is huge. "UFO buffs" have been talking about this thing for years, and I've read several books on so called "UFO" technology where microwave phase conjugation propulsion technology is supposedly one way in which UFOs could operate. For anyone interested, here is one of the books:
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Antigravity-Propulsion-Classified-Technology/dp/159143078X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1406851784
It is sort of a dense read, but covers many of the aspects of how this seemingly impossible microwave propulsion works. This book was published in 2008.
I now think it's plausible that the military has had this sort of technology for years, which could explain many of the "flying saucer" sightings people so often report. I've studied up on the whole UFO thing just because I actually had a very close up flying saucer sighting many years ago...and have still being trying to explain it!
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.
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.
> for under $100
What a bargain!
Or you could buy this for <$12 and work on expanding the human(and all life on earth) frontier beyond one small fragile planet already guaranteed death by immolation(no matter how many furry bunnies you eat or don't eat)?