I like the phrase "descend into management." I remember when that fate
befell me. On the other hand, I was a lousy engineer (at least as a
designer). I was great at pointing out problems with other peoples'
designs, though. :-)
On 2021-03-15 15:12, William Claybaugh wrote:
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