Reassessment for Honors Qualification 

Conducting Independent Research and Maintaining Accurate Documentation

Self-Assessment: Qualifies for Honors

Realizing before hand that physical resources in both the Info Center and town library would be limited, I exhausted both, learning a lot about the development history of the Shuttle and incorporating the lessons learned in my own design.  My Outside Expert also provided me with documentation and mission specifications on several X-Plane vehicles from which my orbiter was ultimately derived.

The Gordon Library at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute has archives of Aviation Week and Space Technology dating back to 1977, as well as a wealth of information surrounding the history of manned space flight in all its aspects.  Aviation Week and Space Technology provided me with unbiased reporting on the development of several programs that play important roles in my design. 

Several books have assisted me with the mathematics and calculus that ultimately helped me determine the mass that can be carried to the International Space Station by the rocket engine I chose. 

Finally, CD-ROM and online resources provided me the technical details and chronological history of engines and their associated propellants, from which my engine and fuel selections were made.  Vehicle and launch platform data and multimedia imagery were also invaluable from these resources.

In the end, many of my resources were in online format, and that's a characteristic of the field.  Much of my required information is not the type of material published in a book, and the technology changes so rapidly that doing so would make it useless once the book was released.  Nevertheless, the search for such materials, which do exist in number for the history and orbital mechanics portions of my project, was a useful one, as it has been a very long time since I have had to do research in the 'physical world.'

Mentor Assessment: Qualifies for Honors

Ryan had to push himself to go beyond his most useful resource - the CD-ROM.  It was difficult to find print resources that were relevant and current.  He made excellent use of his outside experts, and used the WPI library to expand his sources.