The Rocket Company (Library of Flight Series) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This book is a case study for launching the exploitation of space through private means. It has a thin framing story in which the writer claims to be writing a history of a company that is developing a reusable launch vehicle for sale on the open market.
As a fictional business case study, it makes for very interesting reading. The author knows his rocket science and celestial mechanics and lays out his ideas very well. I saw an earlier reviewer's complaint over the use of imperial rather than metric units, but it does not distract from the reasoning.
For a book on space travel, this book is unique in my experience in the detail to which it analyses the business requirements needed to make the ideas work. The idea that the rocket company intends only to manufacture and sell the launch vehicle described in the book is a big departure from the sort of space advocacy books that have been published since the great retreat from the moon.
There are various technical decisions made in the design process described in the book that I have a problem with, but I'd guess that every reader will feel this way and that every reader's quibbles will be different. That's what happens whenever a truly interesting idea is discussed.
I wish more of the ideas presented in the proposed design had been summarized in graphs. Hopefully future printings of the book will expand the one graph at the end into a series of appendices for the technically inclined.
Highly recommended.

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Seven Billionaires and One Big Problem
Big Telescopes, Hot Rodders, and Librarians
Gateses, Jobses, and the Laureates' Lemma
Build Big, Build Many, or Use it Again
Small Market, Small Payload, but not a toy
Myths, Mistrust, and Trust
The Pitch
The Business Plan
Mazes, Stop Cords, and Skunk Workers
Fuel Tanks, Heat Shields, and Fire Walls
Balloon Tanks, Fracture Mechanics, and Friction Stir Welding
Enthusiasm Bubbles, Ejections, and Expander Cycles
Gasoline, Alcohol, Kerosene, or Liquid Methane
Design Reviews, Prototypes, and Parawings
Guidance, Navigation, and Control
Webb Suit, Hard Suit, Space Suit
Markets, Philosophy, Techniques, and Approaches Rockets, Jets, and Soft Landings Pilots, Payloads, and Passengers Mooncars, Monks, and Monasteries Aliens, Cheetahs, and Archea Halfway to Everywhere, First Stage, First Flight Stop the Production Line! Earth Below Us Money, Manufacturing, and Marketing Always Room for Improvement Epilogue I: Space is Finally a PlaceEpilogue II: Mars for the Many.

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