ABSTRACT
Throughout this text we have been developing a knowledge base from historical to future rocket programs, orbital mechanics, the laws of rocketry, types of rockets, systems engineering, testing, and modeling and simulation, and various other fields of science and engineering. What we have learned thus far is merely scratching the surface of the complexity of rocketry. We have barely even discussed the chemistry of rocket fuels, for example. Rocket chemistry for solids, liquids, hybrids, and gels is an amazingly complicated topic within itself and beyond an introductory text. There is cutting edge materials science for rockets that a scientist could study for an entire career. The point is that most rocket scientists and engineers never really become experts at all facets of the field. Instead, they become experts at a particular subset while maintaining a generalist’s knowledge of the field as a whole. So, from an introductory standpoint, rather than attempting to become experts in a particular subset of rocketry, we will learn to think in general about rockets from a big picture, and start learning to think like rocket scientists and engineers must.
