Author Topic: What are your favorite space books?  (Read 15326 times)

Offline kfsorensen

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Re: What are your favorite space books?
« Reply #40 on: 07/15/2009 07:42 pm »
Can anyone recommend a good book about orbital mechanics. I'm not looking for a textbook perse but something that can refresh my math and includes lots of diagrams.

The best bet for the money is "Fundamentals of Astrodynamics" by Bate, Mueller, and White.  It's the not the best book on the subject but it's cheap, handy, and everyone references it (they call it BMW).  Start reading about halfway through the first chapter (and skip all the confusing stuff at the beginning about deriving gravity vectors).  You'll want to read chapter 1 and part of chapter 2 and a little of 3 and 4 and you'll be dangerous in orbital mechanics.

If you want to throw down the dough, there's "Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications" by David Vallado...it's a great book with tons of math and diagrams and extensive discussions of nearly every subject in astrodynamics.  It costs about 5 times more than BMW, so be aware, but it's got lots more info in it than BMW.  I use both, frequently.

Offline Chandonn

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Re: What are your favorite space books?
« Reply #41 on: 07/23/2009 01:26 am »
I love the "technical coffee-table" variety, personally:

"The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Space Technology" (http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Encyclopedia-Space-Technology-Revised/dp/0517574276) [sadly, now out of print...]

... but a good replacement is:
"Spaceflight: The Complete Story From Sputnik to Shuttle - And Beyond" (http://www.amazon.com/Spaceflight-Complete-Sputnik-Shuttle-Beyond/dp/140531818X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248312323&sr=1-2)

...and a nice oldie, for those of us of the "technical manual-loving" variety;
"The Space Transportation Systems Reference" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0920487009/sr=1-1/qid=1248312599/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1248312599&sr=1-1&seller=) [also, out of print, but Amazon has links to a few used copies -- this is the 1983-era shuttle: nose to tail!]
« Last Edit: 07/23/2009 01:37 am by Chandonn »

Offline mlorrey

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Re: What are your favorite space books?
« Reply #42 on: 07/23/2009 05:46 am »
Chris, I'm surprised you dont carry an ad for Amazon.com here, I'll bet their system can easily tell us what the most popular books are for rocket geeks.

That said, while I'm a bibliophile, my book collection has suffered disasters comparable to the history of the library at Alexandria and regrows every decade.

Heppenheimers "Colonies in Space" (1977) was very influential http://www.nss.org/settlement/ColoniesInSpace/index.html

As was NASA's "Settlements in Space" study: http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/75SummerStudy/Table_of_Contents1.html

Sagans books were influential, but so was Heinlein and Asimov in my younger years.

Fogg's "Terraforming" is also a biggie alongside Robinsons Mars trilogy.
« Last Edit: 07/23/2009 06:00 am by mlorrey »
VP of International Spaceflight Museum - http://ismuseum.org
Founder, Lorrey Aerospace, B&T Holdings, ACE Exchange, and Hypersonic Systems. Currently I am a venture recruiter for Family Office Venture Capital.

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