He can get a used copy of the Fundamentals of Astrodynamics on Amazon for just $16.95
I love <em>Fundamentals of Astrodynamics</em> by Bate, Mueller, and White. Usually just referred to as "BMW." It's a really popular intro to orbital mechanics (it's what I learned on), and I think it was originally written for the Air Force Academy. Bonus is that it's on Amazon for like $16, and it's a pretty compact book.
I like:
This book is cheap and will give you all you need to know and more. There is also a really good chapter on orbital mechanics in “Fundamentals of Spacecraft Design” which is an AIAA education series book. Would highly recommend reading that.
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.
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.
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'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.
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.
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:
Significant economic benefit is claimed. It's not a bad first-order assumption to take such claims at face value, although it might not be a bad idea to have some degree of skepticism, especially if the company in question is known for hyperbole and showmanship.
Known financial results do not paint a particularly flattering picture. Incomplete a metric though this may be, very large and important efficiency gains would generally lead to a very healthy bottom line. This doesn't seem to really be the case at the moment.
Studies from other individuals external to the claimant on the viability of the approach. Although there is some contention here, the external studies largely seem to be far more reserved in their claims on economic benefit. Though individually there is some question of credibility, when many parties independently reach the same conclusion it might beg the question of, why? Although it is far from proof, multiple experts corroborating the same story do make a case.
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:
It doesn't mean that it will prove to be a value-added pursuit; they could just as well explore that option until it becomes clear that the benefits are not sufficient to implement it further.
It doesn't mean that the task is a priority; research and opportunities for potential improvement that may only materialize years or decades into the future are staples of the R&D core of space, but it's no guarantee that any certain approach matters sufficiently to emphasize it right now. For example - the detachable engine idea had long been theorized and explored in detail, and may even prove to be viable, but is a far lesser concern than many more immediate factors of rocket design.
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.
Play Kerbal Space Program (seriously). Then pick a book (like this one), it's a much better way to go.
> 1) Is it possible to publish research as an undergrad as early as the first year? basically, how feasible is it to work with professors, get internships, get involved in research, etc?
It is possible to publish as an undergrad, but it is challenging. Of course this depends heavily on which institution you're studying at, but in general it can be hard just to find a professor to work with. Publishing a paper is several steps beyond that. However, it can happen if you try - keep talking to professors, with an emphasis on asking about original projects you could take on, and pursue those projects aggressively.
> 2) Do the studies include orbital mechanics such as calculating orbital maneuvers, planning trajectories for spacecrafts, or skills required for working on missions, or are those part of aeronautical engineering? This seems like a dumb question but I'm not sure.
These skills are generally not taught in astrophysics (or physics) majors. Like you said, aero is a better approach for this. If you'd like to study it on your own, I highly recommend this book.
> 3) How rewarding is a career as an astrophysicist for women as in are there similar biases etc that I've heard women often face in stem related fields?
In my time as an astro major, I did observe this to some degree, unfortunately. Like many things this will be heavily based on your institution. However, I think this kind of discrimination at the undergrad level is less common in astro than, say, mechanical engineering, or physics.
> 4) Is majoring in astrophysics directly in undergrad not preferred if you want to do a Ph.D. later? I've had people advise me to major in physics instead as astrophysics may be too specialized.
This depends on what you'd like to do your PhD in. If you'd like a PhD in astro, then an astro degree is good. If you'd like to get your PhD in a subfield of physics, consider double majoring. However when applying to PhD programs, remember that your major is not of much interest to the admissions committee. They will care much, much, much more about what kind of work you've done, and there's no rule saying you can't work with professors outside of your major. For instance, I see many physics majors take on astro projects, and they would be good astro PhD candidates.
> 5) any general tips that you might want to share or anything to keep in mind for someone wanting to study this discipline?
A difficult question, but I think that the best thing you can do is keep an open mind. This field is huge, and especially when you're in the earlier years it can be detrimental to focus in too fast. You might be sure you want to work with exoplanets, but what if supernovae turn out to be more interesting? To that end, attend as many talks and classes as you can. Look up the professors at your school, and read the papers they have written! This will not only help you get research work, but also open your eyes as to what kinds of things are happening in your department.
Astrophysics is a great field, and can be very rewarding. Good Luck!
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics is a good one.
Playing Kerbal Space Program will give you a really good grasp of basic orbital mechanics too.
If what you're after is an intuition, Kerbal Space Program is honestly the best way to get it. My first class in orbital mechanics assigned us to play that game throughout the semester.
As for truly learning it in a useful way, and learning the terminology, Bate, Mueller and White's fundamentals of astrodynamics is pretty standard, and dirt cheap (sometimes people just call it "BMW"). Most people I know in the industry have a copy lying around somewhere and I bought mine for only $15. It isn't the best book on the subject, but is fairly approachable and covers the basics.
Trajectory planning is a huge topic all on is honestly a different field than pure orbital mechanics. Its really an area of optimization that happens to use information about orbits for the cost function. That said, BMW will introduce the basics of orbital maneuvers including Hohmann transfers.
If you have any background in programming, I'd also recommend trying to implement a simulation. That'll also allow you to more easily approach certain problems. There are many forces acting on a spacecraft's trajectory, such solar radiation pressure, n-body gravitational influences, non-uniform gravity fields, and many others. There are two ways you can account for their influences:
General Perturbations: Where you account for the forces in the differential equations and attempt to solve them analytically. While this yields a single equation that would be extremely efficient to evaluate, it is both exceedingly complicated to do for even simple systems, and is not possible in general.
Special Perturbations: This is where you account for forces numerically. Create a state space model of the dynamics, and numerically integrate them using something like a Runge-Kutta method. At each step, you apply the current force model evaluations. There are many approaches to this, and while it isn't as efficient as having a single analytical solution, it is much simpler and can achieve any accuracy you desire.
BMW primarily focuses on Special Perturbations. And for your purposes thats the route I'd recommend going anyways for studying how different things impact orbits. It allows you to get pretty crazy with how accurate things are modelled with (relatively) little effort. For example, we typically model non-uniform gravity fields using spherical harmonic expansions. Try to model that as a general perturbation, and it becomes a total nightmare... there are some limited solutions such as Nodal Precession where the J_2 term (first of the thousands of terms of the earth's spherical harmonic expansion) is used to derive the precession rate of the right ascension of the ascending node, however for higher levels of accuracy its much easier to simply evaluate the full gravity field model for your current position, then use the calculated acceleration in your numerical integrator.
If you're interested more generally in force modeling, some of my colleagues wrote this paper on the small forces modeling we needed to do for the OSIRIS-REx mission
Overall, I don't believe there is one simple book for everything that you're looking for. Trajectory design in general is very complicated and an active area of research, but BMW will give you an introduction to certain orbit changing maneuvers which will help you to build an intuition. Building a simulation from scratch will allow you play with some of those things and apply that information from the book towards these problems and will allow you build up more towards more complicated topics.
I'm hoping this somewhat helps and that I didn't get too off topic. I'd be curious what other suggestions people might have with this.
Possibly this book? Likely the standard intro text book since its release?
Check out this orbital mechanics book. https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610
As /u/timeforscience said, Fundementals of Astrodynamics is an absolute must and is fantastic. Every book I've consulted that was written after its publication references it.
You can find the pdf for free online but if you prefer real books, it's dirt cheap on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610
Another gem already mentioned by /u/zeekzeek22 is Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students. There's obviously a lot of crossover with Fundementals of Astrodynamics, but it goes in a little more detail and explores some more modern problems. This one is a little more expensive if you want a physical copy, but the pdf is available for free here:https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/66104/mod_resource/content/1/OrbitalMechanicsForEngineeringStudents-AerospaceEngineering.pdf
I also found this site to be very useful with conceptual understanding when first learning about orbital elements and the surrounding geometry: http://braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm
This should keep you busy for a while lol. Good luck and have fun!
Allmhuran's video on gravity assists is awesome.
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics is a book that was recommended for people who really want do dig into the subject. The book is pretty hardcore, so you really want to have taken differential equations or higher level math classes.
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
The moon book. It's the best book on the subject and good reference material. It's also less than $20.
Fundamental of Astrodynamics:
https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics (ISBN-13: 978-0-486-60061-1) may be a little older now, but it has a chapter on determining orbits from observations.
Fundamentals of Astorydnamics is a pretty good introductory text. Also cheap and a paperback.
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/Orbital-Mechanics-Engineering-Students-Aerospace/dp/0080977472
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.