 "Book review" | 2009-09-24 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2IQY00V1BFOZF |
| The product was what i asked for, so that is pleasing. The transaction was safe and reliable. Thank you |
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 "Lost in the translation" | 2009-04-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: AXJHUNIZTYYGK |
| This review is specifically for the kindle version. This is currently my textbook for my Master's course, so I was initially delighted that the book was offered in kindle format. My gripe is not even that some of the illustrations and tables are extremely difficult if not impossible to read - that I expected. However, the kindle edition has a high amount of typos that are not present in the print versions of the book. The worst cases are the homework problems at the end of each section, where the kindle version has incorrect values or required information is simply missing. Sometimes equations are missing vital pieces, like square root symbols and exponents. I only know this because I'm taking the class with a friend who bought the print version of the book. If I went purely off of the kindle text, I'd be failing this class! Also, since all the tables and equations are input as images, the benefit of the kindle search function is useless. The book is not designed for linear reading, and the extremely long lag in searching, highlighting, and moving back and forth between different sections is very frustrating. Finally, the price for this kindle book is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. For the terrible quality of the conversion, they charge just $10 less than a brand-new, hardcover version. You can get a used copy for at least $15 cheaper than this bordering-in-useless copy. Bottom-line: go with the print version. |
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| "Rocket Propulsion Elements" | 2008-08-25 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3KK7QRF64QM7T |
| This is the definitive "text book" for the subject of rocket propulsion. Its coverage of the subject is both broad and detailed. Probably a third of the book can be understood with no more than high school level physics and mathematics. The remainder requires some exposure to undergraduate level mechanical engineering, mathematics and physics, e.g. integral calculus, thermodynamics, etc. This book is in its 7th edition and it shows. The authors have a clean, precise, almost mechanical writing style that you would expect in a highly evolved technical work of this type. I do have one minor bone to pick with this book. The authors have clearly spent their lives doing rocketry in the mega million dollar world of NASA, General Dynamics, etc. Most of the graphs and diagrams emphasis big, big, rockets, e.g. graphs focusing on thrust chambers that operate at 5000 p.s.i. I suspect that most readers are either university students or individuals involved in experimental rocketry. Those that fall into the later category might benefit from better coverage of rocketry done with less exotic materials, fuels, and operating parameters. That minor weakness aside, this book covers in its 700 or so pages, everything that has been learned in the field of rocketry in the last 70 years and it presents this material at a fairly detailed technical level. It is therefore the book against which all others in the field will be judged. |
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 "A model for lucid scientific/engineering writing" | 2008-07-02 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1KFCZF2V2FS62 |
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. |
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| "Another reason why the Russians are ahead" | 2008-01-13 |
| - Reviewed By energomash |
| 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. |
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| "The Bible of the Field" | 2007-03-24 |
| - Reviewed By newbooksinprint |
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. |
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