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Some good references
Gary — (archived)

Marcus asked:

"Is there a good primer on the web, or a book about re-entry in general."

This question was recently asked here but has since scrolled into oblivion.

There is nothing on the web that I know about accept AIAA papers.

The best books are:

"Atmospheric Reenty, An Introduction to its Science and Engineering" by John J. Martin, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.

"Dynamics of Atmospheric Re-Entry" by Frank J. Regan and Satya M. Anandakrishnan, AIAA Education Series, 1993.

Martin's book is a masterpiece and strongly recommended. Regan and Anandakrishnan's book is based upon Martin's book and is excellent. Unfortunately Regan and Anandakrishnan's book is ridiculously expensive. Martin's book has been out-of-print for years but can be bought used through the Internet. Don't waste your time with Amazon for used books. Go to http://www.abebooks.com/ which is hands-down better. I just did a quick check of abebooks and they have copies of Martin's book.

Oh, and a passing comment: Both books are mainly concerned about what in the trade are called "baby killers", i.e. ICBM-RVs. Nobody has bothered to write a book about designing nice entry vehicles like the Mars Pathfinder aeroshell. Fortunately the technology for baby killing also works great for Mars exploration. Such is the moral paradox of aerospace technology.

Gary

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