Handbook of model rocketry

What Hacker News says

1. EvanAndersonMar 2026
   This is pretty cool. I remember having fun simulating my rockets using the BASIC programs from G. Harry Stine's "Handbook of Model Rocketry" when I was a kid. This looks like a way to recreate some of that fun.
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2. dTalApr 2017
   For work:

   Principles of Digital Audio, by Ken Pohlmann

   For play:

   Handbook of Model Rocketry, by G. Harry Stine.

   (p.s. if anyone has any suggestions for the field of imaging, I'd love to hear them as I don't know of a good imaging "bible".)

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3. joelshepMar 2026
   You can buy the Handbook of Model Rocketry and have essentially all the knowledge that's encoded in OpenRocket or RockSim. You just lack the automated simulations and the parts catalogs (whose weights and dimensions should generally be double-checked anyway). The rockets designed by these programs assume static stability. If you want guidance of some sort, that is entirely on you: that's not remotely a capability available in these programs. If you want to launch at a funny angle, that's also entirely on you. If you want "accuracy" regardless of wind variations, motor variations, etc., that's entirely on you as well. There is a huge distance between the capabilities and the accuracy of simulations of programs like this, and what you would need to come close to developing an effective weapon.
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4. EvanAndersonMay 2020
   I love recalling my feelings from the day somebody told me that thrust profiles related to surface area of the burn in solid fuel rocket motors. (That's kind of an odd sentence...)

   It's a silly thing little, perhaps, but it helped shape my personality.

   When I got involved with high power model rocketry I'd been flying little Estes kits for years. I had rudimentary understanding of aerodynamic forces and testing for stability, and had hacked around with flight simulation code cribbed from G. Harry Stine's "Handbook of Model Rocketry". I was young and thought I "knew stuff". Somebody at a high power launch remarked offhandedly about the difference thrust profiles of an end-burner vs. a core-burner. After I digested it I began to reflect on the visceral sense of how little I really knew about rocketry, and the world in general, that I felt.

   It was a seemingly simple piece of trivia about a topic that's not particularly important in my day-to-day life. It was, however, one of those deeply humbling "unknown unknown" moments. I've grown to absolutely adore the feeling of learning about new, uncharted depths in my knowledge because it means there's something new to learn about. The lesson about false confidence and humility was also a really good one. I hope it was a lesson that changed me for the better.

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