Charlie:
Learn and understand algebra; I still use it most every day. In time you
will need calculus to get through college engineering but you will not much
use it after that.
Work is going to change enough over the next few decades that it is
unlikely any of my specific experience is relevant to your question about a
typical day. You will have access to AI tools that will make you more
productive than a team of engineers today.
Liquid rockets will become very highly reusable (thousands of uses) over
your lifetime. That will drive the cost of reaching LEO to a minimum near
the cost: around $30 per lbm. in today’s dollars. Designing such vehicles
will—like airliners—become an exercise in squeezing costs out while
increasing reliability. The swashbuckling startups of today will all be
gone save two or at most three survivors; probably, those will be
nationally sponsored, like Boeing and Airbus.
Beyond LEO, slightly reusable solid core nuclear rockets will be lowest
cost but carry a lot of safety baggage. There might be more swashbuckling
in that area; nuclear rockets remain a DARPA hard problem today and may
will continue to be for several decades.
Living off-planet is going to require learning a lot of new tricks:
functional space suits are a big deal, particularly planetary surface
suits. They are complex multidisciplinary engineering problems and are very
far from a solved solution.
You will—in my view—have an advantage if you understand business and
economics, including finance. However, I cannot recommend an MBA (I have
one); the planet is now awash in MBA’s and they are arguably doing more
harm than good. Do take a class in contracts at your college law
school...one of the very few college classes I have used regularly;
understanding contract law is a big advantage when you descend into
management.
Bill
On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 3:27 PM Charlie Jackson <
charliejackson8629@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello everyone,
As I am aware, a multitude of people here have extensive experience in
working with rocket propulsion, both on amateur and professional
applications. Rockets have become a large passion of mine to learn about
and I want to get a career in the topic, so if you don’t mind, could I ask
a few questions?
-what can I start doing now, at age 14, that will benefit me in the long
run
-what does a typical workday consist of when managing/designing rockets?
-what recourses (books, websites, etc) do you recommend to expand my
knowledge on the topic?
-What company’s are doing interesting work in the field?
-What technology have you worked on and what was it like to see it perform
the way it did?
Kind regards, Charlie