Exterior Ballistics Of Rockets

Abstract

THIS book is the official final report concerning the work done on the exterior ballistics of finstabilized rockets at the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory during 1944 and 1945. It is of importance as containing the only serious treatment of the mathematical theory of rocket flight so far published. Much of the material has been known to rocket ballisticians for a considerable time, but has, for security reasons, remained unpublished until now. The authors make generous acknowledgment of the work of their predecessors in Great Britain and the United States ; but, because of official regulations, they cannot mention individual contributions. It therefore seems fair to record that in Great Britain the theory was well advanced, and in a form suitable for application, before the outbreak of war, the foundations having been laid as early as 1936 by W. R. Cook and other members of the Rocket Section of the Ballistics Department at Woolwich. Since 1939, work on rocket development has proceeded rapidly both in Great Britain and the United States, and information has been freely exchanged ; to this development the authors have made important contributions.

Mathematical Theory of Rocket Flight

By Prof. J. Barkley Rosser Dr. Robert R. Newton Dr. George L. Gross. Pp. viii + 276. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1947.) 22s. 6d.