Rocket and Spacecraft Propulsion: Principles, Practice and New Developments (Springer Praxis Books)

I cannot endorse the current price of this book. I borrowed it from a university library and was very glad to be able to read through it. I learned so much about the current state of rocket science and its history.The author does a great job putting the most important details first and then filling in the rest once your mind is wrapped around the big pieces.

This is a very well written book. The text is clear, and even through the math, there is always a good bottom line explanation. There are many examples from existing rocket engines, and the diagrams are well done and useful.

This is good book about rocket propulsion. The author offers a good theoretical description of chemical rocket engines. The chapter about nuclear thermal rocket is very interesting with a very good qualitative description of nuclear fission and criticity criteria. However, I was not as impressed by the description of electric rocket engines since there are other texts specialized (Physics of Electric Propulsion & Fundamentals of Electric Propulsion) on this toic.An important point is the book is relatively short and about 30-40 pages are devoted to each subject (rocket history, thermal rocket theory, liquid rocket engines, solid motors, electric propulsion, nuclear propulsion, rocket dynamics, etc.) So don't expect much details. Also, this book contains basically no design information. It is a general introduction to rocket propulsion so don't expect to be able to design or built rocket engines after reading this book.A last point, this book is fairly overpriced. There are better books at a better price such as Modern Engineering for Design of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines and Rocket Propulsion Elements.