All it took was those three black books in that box, and High Guard. I didn’t play the game a lot, because few of my friends were interested in that. But what I built belonged to me, and I learned things. This was before JTAS, before the 3rd Imperium became a thing. I spent hours designing ships, fleets, star systems, histories. I had dreams of spaceships and interstellar flight before Traveller, but that little book was like having the plans of the Death Star. That little book cost less than half of that $20 and I had a slice of pizza and a coke waiting for the bus to go home. So I had a twenty dollar bill in my pocket. I was still in high school, I was a part-time stock boy in a neighborhood pharmacy and minimum wage was $3.25/hour. I remember taking a bus into NYC, and seeing High Guard on the shelf at The Compleat Strategist. It may be that this is the starship construction system I’ve been dreaming about since the original High Guard. The Aerospace Engineers’ Handbook also contains a selection of drones and ships, for Travellers to command, fight, or run away from, with advanced rules for spacecraft combat. It also covers the design of drones, space stations, and alternative means of achieving orbit.Īlongside this, there is further information on those living in space, the outsiders who abandoned planets for the stars, along with the major space powers and their fleets. The Aerospace Engineers’ Handbook provides everything you need to design not just the ships of human space, but also the vessels of the alien Kaefers, Pentapods, and Sung. The most difficult part remains escaping a planetary gravity well once in orbit, you are halfway to anywhere. Rather than taking decades or even centuries to reach the stars, stutterwarp reduces that time to days. The stutterwarp drive provides the key to interstellar travel.
They are also vital in the defence and acquisition of colony worlds and the economies that rely on them. Spacecraft and starships are the lifeblood of exploration and commerce.
This practice encompasses a range of craft from sleek surface-to-orbit craft to lumbering bulk carriers, and the aerospace engineer is key to their design. Aerospace engineering is the art and science of designing spacecraft and starships.