Full name: Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

Author: John D. Clark Year: 1972 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Science, Non Fiction, History Purchase/reserch links: Amazon Goodreads LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780813507255 0813507251

Ignition! is the inside story of the Cold War era search for a rocket propellant that could be trusted to take man into space. A favorite of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, listeners will want to tune into this "really good book on rocket[s]," available for the first time in audio. Ignition! is the story of the search for a rocket propellant which could be trusted to take man into space. This search was a hazardous enterprise carried out by rival labs who worked against the known laws of nature, with no guarantee of success or safety. Acclaimed scientist and sci-fi author John Drury Clark writes with irreverent and eyewitness immediacy about the development of the explosive fuels strong enough to negate the relentless restraints of gravity. The resulting volume is as much a memoir as a work of history, sharing a behind-the-scenes view of an enterprise that eventually took men to the moon, missiles to the planets, and satellites to outer space. A classic work in the history of science, listeners will want to get their hands on this influential classic, available for the first time in decades. Similar books: The Code Book by Simon Singh The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert Cod by Mark Kurlansky Salt by Mark Kurlansky The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough Hackers by Steven Levy The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan The Cracking Code Book by Simon Singh The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston The Information by James Gleick Meetings with Remarkable Trees by Thomas Pakenham Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels Coming of Age In The Milky Way by Timothy Ferris How to Make a Spaceship by Julian Guthrie Atomic Accidents by James Mahaffey Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage