Re: orbital mechanics for engineers

Justin S. McFarland wrote:
> Being an astrodynamicist by day this is among my favorites:
> 
> Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications, 2nd. ed. (The Space
> Technology Library) 
> by David A Vallado

Only if the 2nd edition is a significant improvement over the first. I 
remember the errata sheet for the 1st edition as being rather long and 
incomplete. During my classes we (myself and other students) found 
numerous other errors. Curiously, neither Vallado nor the publisher were 
interested in what we had found. Consequently we largely abandoned that 
book in favor of Chobotov, Prussig and BMW. Although, we rarely found 
much use for BMW.

In the end its not so much that one is better than the others, because 
none of them are complete or easy to use, you need all of them and then 
you need to know which one has the answer you're looking for.