Best Aerospace Propulsion Technology

So begins Homer "Sonny" Hickam Jr.'s extraordinary memoir of life in Coalwood, West Virginia-a hard-scrabble little company town where the only things that mattered were coal mining and high school football. But in 1957, after the Soviet satellite Sputnik shot across the Appalachian sky, Sonny and his teenaged friends decided to do their bit for the U.S. space race by building their own rockets—and Coalwood, Sonny and A powerful story of growing up and of getting out, of a mother's love and a father's fears, Homer Hickam's memoir Rocket Boys proves, like Angela's Ashes and Russell Baker's Growing Up before it, that the right storyteller and the right story can touch readers' hearts and enchant their souls. After an initial, destructive try involving 12 cherry bombs, Sonny and his cronies set up the Big Creek Missile Agency (BCMA). From Auk I (top altitude, six feet), through Auk XXXI (top altitude, 31,000 feet), the boys experiment with nozzles, fins and, most of all, fuel, graduating from a basic black powder to "rocket candy" (melted potassium chlorate and sugar) to "Zincoshine" (zinc, sulfur, moonshine). Hickam admits to taking poetic license in combining characters and with the sequence of events, and if there is any flaw, it's that the people and the narrative seem a little too perfect.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"His autobiography of his life as a coal miner's son in rural West Virginia in the 50s is told without pretense or shame."
"Thoroughly enjoyed the book."
"How world events shaped a small town school and some of its students.Impressed with the Russian launch of Sputnik, a group of friends began building rockets that would eventuall travel 5 miles high and lead to their admission into college and allowed them to leave the small coal minning town and become successful citizens."
"Loved the story of how a boy from a coal mining town became interested in rockets and wound up an engineer at NASA."
"Not just s memoir, but an exciting story about a way of life vanished in the tides of economic change."
"If you're looking for book to read, this is an excellent one that I would highly suggest."
"I went to school with these boys,."
"Treasured book."

Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible. These women spent their days writing equations and computing numbers with pencils, paper, and slide rules to give the male engineers the information they needed to build rockets, satellites, and space shuttles.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The woman who was in charge of the "computers," Macie Roberts, hired only women for the department, because she wanted to preserve the camaraderie and team spirit so essential to this critical work. It would get spliced up and repurposed, pasted into different missions, sent out into space, driven on far-off planets...to (currently orbiting Mars and Saturn spacecraft)...to future Earth-orbiting instruments designed to study our own world." It will tell you of a time when women, using only their minds and pencils, rendered the complex calculations that allowed the United States of America to have a space program at all."
"As a former 'Rocket Girl' (General Dynamics/Convair Launch Vehicle Engineering), I found this book fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable."
"It's one of those rare, well-written, well-researched books that serves as a great tribute to these women; a tribute to the women pioneers of space flight."
"This book covers the history of JPL from the very beginning, told through the lives of the computers, women who did the serious mathematics needed to compute trajectories, model rocket thrust, etc. But this is also a story about women's experience in the 1940s through the 1970s."
"It has been a long time since I found a book that I could barely put down."
"I had no idea about these women working at JPL!"
"Well written stories, interesting to find out how our society has evolved in some ways and regressed in other ways in terms of providing ways for intelligent women to earn a living."

Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible. These women spent their days writing equations and computing numbers with pencils, paper, and slide rules to give the male engineers the information they needed to build rockets, satellites, and space shuttles.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The woman who was in charge of the "computers," Macie Roberts, hired only women for the department, because she wanted to preserve the camaraderie and team spirit so essential to this critical work. It would get spliced up and repurposed, pasted into different missions, sent out into space, driven on far-off planets...to (currently orbiting Mars and Saturn spacecraft)...to future Earth-orbiting instruments designed to study our own world." It will tell you of a time when women, using only their minds and pencils, rendered the complex calculations that allowed the United States of America to have a space program at all."
"As a former 'Rocket Girl' (General Dynamics/Convair Launch Vehicle Engineering), I found this book fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable."
"It's one of those rare, well-written, well-researched books that serves as a great tribute to these women; a tribute to the women pioneers of space flight."
"This book covers the history of JPL from the very beginning, told through the lives of the computers, women who did the serious mathematics needed to compute trajectories, model rocket thrust, etc. But this is also a story about women's experience in the 1940s through the 1970s."
"It has been a long time since I found a book that I could barely put down."
"I had no idea about these women working at JPL!"
"Well written stories, interesting to find out how our society has evolved in some ways and regressed in other ways in terms of providing ways for intelligent women to earn a living."
Best Aircraft Design & Construction

A complete investigation of the development and suppression of antigravity and field propulsion technologies. • Reveals advanced aerospace technologies capable of controlling gravity that could revolutionize air travel and energy production. His findings merit earnest consideration, debate, and discussion.” ( Ervin Laszlo, author of Science and the Akashic Field ). “Paul LaViolette’s investigations into this most mysterious of subjects are at once fascinating and prescient.” ( Nick Cook, author of The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology ). Paul LaViolette is an outstanding scientist and the first to reverse engineer the B-2’s highly classified propulsion system.” ( Eugene Podkletnov, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry, Tampere, Finland ). "Numerous field-propulsion devices and techologies that have huge thrust-to-power ratios are surveyed in chapters which offer new science ideas and theories perfect for any new age library."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"My son and I study the aspect of magnet waves."
"This book goes into great detail about antigravity research and the possible use of it in some quarters of the military."
"Have not finished it yet but is not a book for wanting to learn how to build ufo but rather its history in the USA and some declassified information."
"Excellent reading...you will not be disappointed."
"If you are a technically educated person you will find this an intriging book- if you are not a techie a little scanning around will educate you on what has been and is happening in this area of technology."
Best Avionics Aerospace Engineering

Inertial navigation is widely used for the guidance of aircraft, missiles ships and land vehicles, as well as in a number of novel applications such as surveying underground pipelines in drilling operations. David Titterton is currently the technical leader of laser systems at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), part of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"An excellent text that has helped me work through some challenges with a legacy inertial navigation system in one of our underwater systems and provided a better overall understanding of the topic area, including advances in inertial sensor technology."
"While an entire chapter is devoted to MEMS, it would seem that the mechanization material (as well as alignment) is geared towards higher-end devices, in that many MEMS units I've encountered cannot readily identify any component of Earth's rotation, making much of the math superfluous for my application."
"Despite covering a wide range of complex subjects, the explanations in this book are clear."
"A good introduction from the ground up."
"Strapdown Inertial Nav."
Best Gas Dynamics Aerospace Engineering

This edition features expanded coverage of aircraft turning and accelerated climb performance, takeoff velocities, load and velocity-load-factors, area rules, and hypersonic flight, as well as the latest advances in laminar flow airfoils, wing and fuselage design, and high-performance lightplanes. This book gives you an inside look at how modern aircraft are designed-including all the steps in the design process, from concept to test flight, and the reasoning behind them.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I want to know more about flying and how planes work and found little that could explain it so I can understand, until I found this book."
"This is a great book."
"I am an aeronautic engineer student and this help me as much as the teacher, it complement and help to understand more the subjects."
"Great book to get if your working towards your CFI or airlines."
"You will not need advance mathematics to follow along, although some college physics or engineering will certainly be helpful."
"Best, easiest to read book for aerodynamics written in language for pilots!"
"Learn thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, gas dynamics, then go to this before starting your aerodynamics courses."
Best Aerodynamics

In keeping with its bestselling previous editions, Fundamentals of Aerodynamics , Fifth Edition by John Anderson, offers the most readable, interesting, and up-to-date overview of aerodynamics to be found in any text. In 1973, he became Chairman of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland, and since 1980 has been Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland. He continued with the Air and Space Museum one day each week as their Special Assistant for Aerodynamics, doing research and writing on the History of Aerodynamics.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The pages are thinner than other textbooks I've had, and the paperback cover can get tattered easily, but for the price I can't expect more."
"Blessed be this John D. Anderson, may he liveth long life."
"This is a great book for college aged kids with an engineering or very strong science and math background."
"It is a good book."
"I read previous reviews before I bought this book."
"The book is in accordance with other reviewer's write-up."
"Great book for teaching yourself the basics of Aerodynamics, also used as the main text for Fluid Mechanics offered by MIT opencourse which makes it that much better."
"Its an indian version that does not have all the exercise problems and its in SI units."
Best Astronautics & Space Flight

he #1 New York Times bestseller The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The book is as much about the advances and science done at NACA and NASA as it is about the black women who were an integral part of this piece of history."
"Many movie goers who only see the movie will miss out on a number of opportunities to see more realistically Aunt Katherine's nature, attitudes, and life's perspectives on work, family, and race."
"Sure, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, et al are amazing, inspiring, and strong, but their own modesty over their roles in NACA/NASA history is telling: like many black pioneers of the Jim Crow era, they didn't step up for the attention or accolades. The portions of the book that were the most fascinating to me were those pertaining to the links forged by the black community in the Southern Virginia area, and how they intersected with employment and residency in Hampton as the 20th century progressed."
"But this book dealt particularly well with how black society dealt with segregation and all the attendant hardships and how it fought against them."
"I had no idea that black women played such a key role in our space program. HIDDEN FIGURES tells the story of four determined black women, who overcame numerous obstacles, and worked in the space program at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (now known as "Langley Research Center."). To give the reader an idea of how difficult it was for a woman--much less an African-American woman--to actually become a mathematician, the author notes these statistics: "In the 1930s, just over a hundred women worked as professional mathematicians." The likelihood of a black woman actually becoming a mathematician working on the space program was about zero: "Employers openly discriminated against Irish and Jewish women with math degrees. It was unusual for a woman to even be acknowledged as co-author of a report: "The work of most of the women, like that of the computing machines they used, was anonymous."