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Essential Books



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 27th 03, 08:16 AM
David Findlay
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Default Essential Books

This has been discussed before, but in the interests of traffic, here goes:

What do you think are the essential books for readers of sci.space.*?

I think one of the most important would be Rocket Propulsion Elements. Any
others? Thanks,

David

  #2  
Old October 27th 03, 07:09 PM
Derek Lyons
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Default Essential Books

David Findlay wrote:
This has been discussed before, but in the interests of traffic, here goes:

What do you think are the essential books for readers of sci.space.*?


For which readers? The students of history? The engineers? The
mars-at-all-costs crowd?

I think one of the most important would be Rocket Propulsion Elements. Any
others? Thanks,


My main interest is in the economics of colonization, how is that book
useful to me?

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.

  #3  
Old October 27th 03, 07:21 PM
Jim Kingdon
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Default Essential Books

What do you think are the essential books for readers of sci.space.*?

Well, it depends on one's interests, but the Isakowitz is pretty
helpful if you want to keep track of which rockets are being built
around the world. It lists payload, fuels, performance, launch sites,
and other stuff of that sort.

If you don't want to spend the $80, the
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/space/launchers/ page is pretty good (but
rather outdated, even more so than the 3rd edition of the paper
Isakowitz).

There are plenty of web sites which have some of this, for example
http://www.astronautix.com/ or
http://www.spaceandtech.com/spacedata/elvs/elvs.shtml

  #4  
Old October 27th 03, 11:04 PM
David Findlay
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Default Essential Books

Derek Lyons wrote:
David Findlay wrote:
This has been discussed before, but in the interests of traffic, here
goes:

What do you think are the essential books for readers of sci.space.*?


For which readers? The students of history? The engineers? The
mars-at-all-costs crowd?


Okay, some categories:

History:
Failure is not an Option, Gene Kranz

Engineering:
Rocket Propulsion Elements

Exploration:
???

Colonisation:
???

Celestial Mechanics:
???

Thanks,

David

  #5  
Old October 28th 03, 12:29 AM
Andrew Gray
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Default Essential Books

In article , David
Findlay wrote:
This has been discussed before, but in the interests of traffic, here goes:

What do you think are the essential books for readers of sci.space.*?

I think one of the most important would be Rocket Propulsion Elements. Any
others? Thanks,


Thoughts related to my interests and competencies, which have a tendency
not to be rocket science... b

http://www.astronautix.com/ is not a book, but is one of the most useful
reference materials around; ditto the various bits and pieces on
history.nasa.gov. Limiting oneself to dead-trees (g), Siddiqi (sp?) &
Chaikin seem to be the commonly mooted "space-race-era" histories, and I
keep hearing quite wonderful things about Jenkins' book on STS. Of
course, I only own one of those three... damn "money", and that "goods
and services" crap... I want books...

I do feel everyone should read /Case for Mars/, even if they throw it
across the room or tear out all the "and once we get SSTOs..." chapters
afterwards. This is a not uncommon reaction, based on my sampleset. The
other one I'd like to pimp at everyone is Sagan & Shlovskii's
"Intelligent Life In The Universe", which has a few v. outdated
chapters (ie, everything wrt Mars), but is excellent nonetheless.

Virtually everyone you can name has written (or, at least, put their
name to) an autobiography; I don't own any, but I do recall (being told)
that Mike Collin's book is a cut above most of them. A quick glance at
the shelf shows "A House In Space" (Henry Cooper); a 1978 book on
Skylab. Interesting reading, a good accessible read on space-station
lessons.

A good undergraduate physics textbook, for those of us who were never
very good at it, may well prove handy at times; everyone owns one
anyway, right?

There's a lot of general references which might prove useful; I have a
few "guide to the Solar System" type books of various vintages kicking
around, although most of the data they contain can be found online
easily enough. Ditto most general reference books; I tend to accrete
these (I have a medical dictionary, a journalism law reference, and a
popular-science book on the various chemical elements to hand just now),
and I suspect anyone else who lets themselves buy books on the "that
might come in handy" basis will... you never know when being able to
look up the world actinium reserves ("unimaginably little", since you
asked) might be important.

I really can't think of anything else particularly relevant, although
the Apogee books are excellent in their individual sectors.

--
-Andrew Gray


  #7  
Old October 28th 03, 02:13 AM
David Findlay
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Default Essential Books

There is a lot of these. For the basics of American spaceflight, Baker's
A History of Manned Spaceflight is hard to beat. (Conspiracy fans should
do a compare&contrast between Baker's Soviet history and what is know
today.)

How could you not include Chaiken's A Man on the Moon?

Kranz' book is good. His boss' (Flight, Chris Kraft) is better. Collin's
Carrying the Fire is better than either.


Haven't read any of them yet, but I'll have to sometime. I'm currently
reading a book called Tracking Apollo to the Moon, by Hamish Lindsay. It's
good, covering the programme from an Australian tracking station point of
view, although there a numerous typo's, wrong names, and that makes me
wonder if some of the other details are wrong too. Interesting book though,
and some good pictures. Thanks,

David

  #8  
Old October 28th 03, 04:53 AM
Scott Lowther
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Default Essential Books

David Findlay wrote:

This has been discussed before, but in the interests of traffic, here goes:

What do you think are the essential books for readers of sci.space.*?

I think one of the most important would be Rocket Propulsion Elements. Any
others? Thanks,


Ah, a chance to show off a fraction of the Scott Lowther Non Lending
Library:

Primary space references;
http://up-ship.com/images/Pdr_0015.jpg

Secondary space references:
http://up-ship.com/images/Pdr_0016.jpg

Tertiary space references:
http://up-ship.com/images/Pdr_0018.jpg

All of my Orion and about 2/3 of my Dyna Soar references:
http://up-ship.com/images/Pdr_0019.jpg


--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

  #9  
Old October 28th 03, 04:57 AM
David Findlay
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Default Essential Books

Ah, a chance to show off a fraction of the Scott Lowther Non Lending
Library:


When is your library opening for public borrowing? ;-) j/k

*drools*

David

  #10  
Old October 28th 03, 05:53 AM
Scott Lowther
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Default Essential Books

David Findlay wrote:

Ah, a chance to show off a fraction of the Scott Lowther Non Lending
Library:


When is your library opening for public borrowing? ;-) j/k

*drools*


Let me think... when is Hell due for a frost?

Some of the stuff I have took me years of patient work to get. Some took
vast sums of money. Some took luck. Most just took a credit card.

A couple of the books... "Handbook of Astronautical Engineering," and
"Ballistics of the Future" (that one's not shown in the photos) are
one-grand-plus books. Others, like the Hydrogen Peroxide Handbook, were
downloaded off the net for free. Go figure.

Not shown is the current pile of books that I plan on selling. One of
those books is one of the afore-mentioned "Handbook..."

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

 




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