Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants By John Drury Clark und 2 weitere

Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants

..we were all seated around the table in the middle of the lab, having lunch. I glanced up, and noticed that the contents of one flask was turning a little brown. “Who owns that one?” I asked (every man was making a different salt), “Better watch it!” One of them started to get up. The contents of the flask frothed up and then settled, frothed up and settled again, just like a man about to sneeze. I said “Hit the deck!”

This is the 60's, when jet planes looked like proper jet planes, man had yet to walk on the moon, and flying cars were just around the corner. A small, elite bunch of scientists are happily mixing oxidisers and fuels together in an attempt to solve problems such as How to get that infeasibly large aircraft off an aircraft carrier

This is the story of one man, a survivor, with all digits intact but interesting eyebrows, battling the Army, the Navy, the Air force and a few competitors for the crown of making something that didn't explode if you moved it, didn't explode if you stored it, and memorably, didn't explode if you shone a torch at it. The author is clearly one of the people at the forefront of this research highly specialised as it was for a period of many decades. His narration and it is really a narration of What We Did And When style is highly amusing and accessible. He writes almost as if he were giving a Plenary lecture right before the conference Reception.
Some of the stories he tells are hilarious; some literally tragic in multiple horrific ways and some of squirming sales reps forced to make fools out of themselves because 'we need to pretend our product is special' but are talking to engineers that 'Know'.
This is a complex subject with a lot of chemical names and few structural diagrams except when the compounds got really crazy weird as some did; perhaps this is for the best. Hence you will either need a really good memory for what 'UDMH' / 'IRFNA (red fuming nitric acid)' is or consult the helpful glossary at the back (a lot). At one point I thought about copying the glossary onto separate sheets for quick consultation. Higher education in Chemistry helpsthough only do much as the chemistry is so specialist you either know it very specifically or little than anything you learned about the reactivity scale of elements (Fluorine as the master) at school is going to help before you start reading. A lot of the challenges were physical (how to stop the fuel freezing at above 56C this being a military requirement for example) or how to get the fuel to 'light' smoothly and political (programs start; money is awarded; companies pile in, fashions change and interests move on to another program that starts).
As the author states he expresses his own opinion. He does this fearlessly as one might expect from a person now retired from his senior position with many of his incompetent or simply unlucky contemporaries dead (literally).
I'll probably be sending this book out for Christmas presents to some of my geeky friends in December 2019 having read it myself in 2018. Leider kann ich zum Inhalt wenig sagen, aber mein Sohn, der überwiegend bis ausschließlich englische Literatur liest, weil er vier Jahre in Südostasien in einer englischsprachigen internationalen Schule war, sucht sich immer anspruchsvolle, beste Literatur aus. Deshalb Audiobook More than you ever wanted to know about the development of liquid rocket fuels. I enjoyed the book, but I guess you need a strong interest in rocket science / chemistry or history of technology. It's not exactly a light read. John Drury Clark und 2 weitere Hard to write a review of a book still a unique piece of its kind after 40 years. Check the foreword and everything is clear! Englisch

++ Nothing to add to the reviews on the content = interesting and entertaining (for those with some chemistry background)

BUT the TINY print and small format don't justify the price. Habe das Buch aus einem allgemeinen Interesse an Raumfahrt und Raketentechnik gekauft und gelesen. Es handelt tatsächlich fast nur von Treibstoffen, die sonstigen Hintergründe beim Entwicklungsprozess kommen kaum vor, das sollte der geneigte Leser vielleicht vorher academia Der Autor hat sich bemüht den Zeitlichen ablauf der Entwicklung des Raketentreibstoffes so Detailreich wie möglich darzustellen, was ihm Hervoragend gelungen ist. Das Buch sticht durch seine Extrem Kurzweilige Schreibweise auf, und D. Clark wertet sein gesamte Werk Eine sehr gelungene Mischung aus Fachwissen, Historie und Humor. Das Buch stellt die Entwicklung von Raketentreibstoffen dar und zeigt dabei auf wie teilweise irrsinnige Anforderung des Militärs auf den Ehrgeiz von rocket scientists oder vielmehr Sometimes it gets very technical. It discusses only the actual propellants and very little else about rocket design except for storage considerations. Most of the fuels and oxidizers in the book are so exotic and expensive that I wonder why they ever considered actually John Drury Clark und 2 weitere