Product Description
Aerospace Engineering/Mechanical Engineering
The definitive text on rocket propulsion-now completely revised to reflect rapid advancements in the field
For more than fifty years, this seminal text has been regarded as the single most authoritative sourcebook on rocket propulsion technology. More comprehensive and coherently organized than any other book on the subject, Rocket Propulsion Elements guides readers evenhandedly through the complex factors that shape propulsion, with both theory and practical design considerations.
With more than a third of the text and illustrations either completely new or extensively revised, this latest edition includes current information on engine structures, nozzle theory, gas properties, thrust chambers, launch vehicles, and more. With a detailed table of contents breaking down each chapter into subsections-as well as an expanded index of key words-the Seventh Edition efficiently steers readers quickly to the information they need. Other highlights include:
* Separate chapters on liquid, solid, and hybrid propulsion systems and a new chapter on thrust chambers including the new aerospike nozzle
* Comprehensive coverage of rocket propulsion technology, with applications to space flight, satellite flight, and guided and unguided missiles
* Problem-solving examples and exercises relevant to actual design situations
* More than 340 illustrations, including photographs, tables, and graphs
* Coherent, up-to-date chapter on electrical propulsion balancing fundamentals with practical aspects and applications
For professional engineers in the aerospace and defense industries as well as undergraduate and graduate students in mechanical and aerospace engineering, this time-honored resource is indispensable for its scope of coverage and utility.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 20 reviews)

Rocket Propulsion Elements

I'm only sixteen years old, and still only in algebra 2, but I bought this book because I am extremely fascinated with rocketry and I want to learn more about it. This will be a text that will be with me throughout my college years and beyond, and I feel that it was a great investment. The math and chemistry are a little intimidating thus far, but then again, where do they get the phrase, "It's not rocket science!"? I realize it's a little ambitious for me, but if I systematically go through it I'm that much closer to experimental rocketry/spacecraft.

The book is thoughtfully laid out, and exhaustively covers pretty much every area of rocket propulsion. I would recommend this book to any aspiring rocket scientist!
August 25, 2008

A model for lucid scientific/engineering writing

I picked up this book in a used bookstore on a lark, tossed it on my "in" pile of books, and there it languished for a year or so. When I finally picked it up as a cure for insomnia, I managed to make my way through 2/3 of the thing before finally falling asleep. This book is marvelous. I had no idea what was involved in real rocket science, but quite a bit. Vibration physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, injectors, turbopumps... The book would make a wonderful practical course for, say, a senior physics student, to test his knowledge of different fields. I was also struck by the elegant simplicity of the models which were actually used to design the rockets we use today. This is no cookbook of differential equations for finite element analysis and doing what the idiot box says; this hearkens back to when engineers used slide rules, and designed things they really understood. The elegant results for nozzle shape, driven by thermodynamics (I had no idea why rockets had big nozzles like they do), and flame length estimators of rocket thrust alone were worth the price of the book.

I had no idea it is still used as a textbook for rocketry (I have the second edition from 1956), but it doesn't surprise me terribly. The lucidity of the writing and derivations made this almost inevitable. I'm sure there are more practical books in Russian, but there aren't in English, so this one will remain a classic until Americans begin to do real rocket science again.
July 02, 2008

Another reason why the Russians are ahead

I was fortunate enough to have a rocket propulsion internship at the Moscow Aviation Institute when I was an undergrad. As I hadn't taken a full-fledged rocket propulsion I bought this book for the trip. After arriving I proudly showed this great tome to my researchers to which they scanned it and replied, "This book is great if you would like to look at pictures and read vague stories about general rocketry, but it doesn't explain at all how to engineer or build anything, so it is worthless." I passed this off as hubris until they gave me a couple of the old Soviet books on rocket engineering full of detailed performance characteristics and equations which were horribly lacking in Sutton. Even with my nonexistent Russian they were more useful than "the tome." Unfortunately I wasn't able to bring their engineering books back with me, but trust me, I was ashamed I had brought Sutton. I ended up not even using it as a door stop. I can hope future versions will get technical but don't count on it. If it hasn't managed to do it in 50 years since it was first published, it probably won't happen.
January 13, 2008

The Bible of the Field

When as a young physicist I started working on rocket nozzle design most of the material in this book had to be dug up from a paper here, a book there, or else it simply wasn't known. Now here's everything you need to know in a couple of chapters. And besides nozzle design, here in information on virtually every aspect of rockets from the design to the propellents, from concepts to testing. Most of the book is on conventional liquid or solid fuel chemical rockets, because that's where most of the action is today. There is a new chapter (from my older edition) on electrical propulsion.

The book is suitable for use as a textbook for either a one or two term course, or as an introductory book to an engineer now moving into the field, or as a reference book for the experienced. It is especially good to use when you need to come up to speed on some area of the business where you don't normally work.

The one weakness of the book is the lack of discussion on computers either in terms of engine control systems or of the design software that is avaiable. Next revision I guess.
March 24, 2007

If you love rocket propulsion you must get this book

I have loved rocket propulsion in all its forms (real and imagined) since I was following the Apollo 11 mission on television. This book will help you with every aspect of rocketry whether for direct professional relevance, hobbyist development or whether you dream with many of us of solving the problems that will allow us (as so eloquently put by the late Carl Sagan) to "dip our toes in the cosmic ocean". I believe we must swim between the stars and the nuts and bolts foundations for doing it are in this book. Go get it. Lets do it.
January 19, 2007

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Modern Engineering for Design of Liquid-Propellant Rocket Engines (Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics)
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Mechanics and Thermodynamics of Propulsion (2nd Edition)
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Handbook of Model Rocketry, 7th Edition (NAR Official Handbook)
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Physics of Electric Propulsion
by Robert G. Jahn