space ghorl 🚀

PRO-TIP: If you want to be a mechanical engineer, read old stuff. Its usually far better for learning because 50 years ago people actually wrote things with a view that the content be useful, and clear to others. Its VERY hard to find such writing now, principally because academics & students/postgrads are all under immense pressure to publish, constantly. Publishing LOTS of papers in impressive sounding journals (so you`ll get your grants next year) means they often have to be pretty much junk, decent work takes a while sadly. So, read old stuff. An incomparably excellent source for this is the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS). Whilst it contains many incomprehensible papers too, it also contains SPACE VEHICLE DESIGN CRITERIA papers. Very detailed and lengthy manuscripts, if you want to learn how gears work, I can recommend how I learned, by reading: "Liquid Rocket Engine Turbopump Gears." This is the turbopump from the Saturn 1B rocket engine, it has a 32,000rpm, 5000bhp geartrain from the axial flow turbine to power the liquid oxygen pumps using gears just 36.5mm wide. (The H1 engine looks a bit like a German WW2 V2 rocket engine because... ) Stuff that sent things into space 50 years ago is probably better than most commercial products are today. Do yourself a favour, spend some time on the NTRS server and learn > ntrs.nasa.gov/search