Customer Reviews

Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Buyers should know that these reprint editions come from University Microfilms Books on Demand service and that the UMI price to individuals (they sell over the web) is $72. The vendors (who pay 20% less) just charge you $104 and have the book drop shipped from Ann Arbor. Quality of printing is good and even photos reproduce well.

This book has the right mix of technical details, descriptions of experiments with spectacular results, background info about the why's and how's, and about the politics involved. It is a very engaging and uplifting book because Clark captured a lot of the enthusiasm he had for rockets.

Of course, being a hard-core rocket geek, I first read this book hoping to learn about one of my favorite subjects. What I found was a wonderful, personal account of the men behind the technology. This book is an entertaining read that manages to teach quite a bit along the way. My favorite quote from the book is where Clark describes Red Fuming Nitric Acid (RFNA), a powerful oxidizer, as a substance that "attacks flesh with the avidity of a school of pirhana." That one passage did more to instill a sense of caution in my chosen hobby than anything else I've read or heard before or since.

The author is a suberb writer as well as a chemist. Umpteen years of funny stories are threaded through the history of rocket propulsion. My favorite is the attempt to use skunk oil as fuel.......

I love this book. It is an excellent reference for the aspiring liquid-fuel "rocketeer", as well as an informative and entertaining account of the history behind our nation's research in this field. I originally picked up the book looking for a reference on propellants, but instead found one of my all-time favorite books, which I can read for hours on end despite the seemingly dry subject matter. Bravo to Mr. Clark!

Please do not be fooled by the title, although this book contains hard factual data bout America's valiant attempt to build a rocketry program out of thin air, it is essentially a story of the hidden side of science. The near-deadly goofs and hilarious blunders. The entire episode of Vice President Richard M. Nixon and the Secret Service's machine-gun fight against the swarm of deaf bats in the fuel lab is alone worth the price of this hysterically funny book. Hard data, lots of real-world surprises and tons of laughs, I recommend it highly to every serious technophile and humor collector.

Well, I got this for considerably less than $500. However you get it, though, it's a wonderful tale. Starting with the Germans and before, it traces the history of rocket propellent from the chemist's POV. That Clark was a serious scientist becomes quickly clear. That he's also an excellent writer (it's a page-turner, in it's way) with a great sense of humor becomes more and more clear as you read this. Chemistry, people, incidents and accidents written by a man who was a central figure in it all for 30 years. I'd never heard of this till lately, and I'm glad I found it and read it. My father was a part of it, too, in engineering. Be aware - it's written by a chemist, though it's no textbook. You'll need some understanding of chemistry to get through this.