Mathematical Theory Of Rocket Flight.

The official final report to the Office of Scientific Research and Development on the exterior ballistics of fin-stabilized rocket projectiles, produced under Section H of Division 3 of the National Defense Research Committee at the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in 1944–45 (Final Report No. B2.2, OSRD 5878). First edition, McGraw-Hill, 1947, printed by the Maple Press, York, Pa. The authors were J. Barkley Rosser of Cornell, Robert R. Newton of Bell Telephone Laboratories, and George L. Gross of Grumman, all former Allegany associates; the Preface is dated at Ithaca, N.Y., May 1947.

After secrecy was lifted, expository material was added so the book could be read by a trained scientist new to rockets, with plain-language explanations to let less mathematical readers skip the equations. Chapters cover the equations of motion of a rocket, motion after burning, motion during burning (with dispersion due to yaw, lift, cross-spin and thrust misalignment, and firing from aircraft), boundary conditions at the launcher, and the properties of the “rocket functions,” with tables of values and appendices running to 629 pages.

The Preface notes that about a hundred reports of other workers were used, many still classified, and that the publishers agreed to relinquish copyright ten years after publication, making the work public domain.