05-29-2020, 09:50 AM
Full Title: Ignition! -- An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants
This was first published in 1972 and is now in its 4th printing. The foreword is by Isaac Asimov, and there's a cover blurb by Elon Musk.
LCF and I bought this based on a recommendation by Scott Manley, a Scottish youtuber who covers all things rocket-related, with a emphasis on SpaceX. The author, John D. Clark, is openly opinionated in relating his experiences developing and testing different types of liquid rocket fuel and oxidizers. It's funny, ghastly, critical (with fingerpointing, sometimes at himself), and one has to wonder why more people weren't killed in these labs, and whether the US has a whole lot more contaminated sites that just aren't reported.
Some of the experimental fuels/oxidizers are so corrosive that they eat through tanks, and the fumes dare not be breathed. When the Navy balked at storing ground to air missiles below deck out of fear of a rocket leak, Clark and other propulsion researchers strove to come up with a toothpaste-like fuel that, if it leaked, would not seep down and cause the ship to sink. But of course that just introduced a whole new can of worms.
So many ideas, strategies, attempts at enhancing performance, and so many gotchas.
Lots of explosions, and chemical equations I somewhat followed (having two semesters of organic chemistry in college). Even without understanding the chemistry, a fascinating and fun read.
Oh. No sword fights. Sorry.
This was first published in 1972 and is now in its 4th printing. The foreword is by Isaac Asimov, and there's a cover blurb by Elon Musk.
LCF and I bought this based on a recommendation by Scott Manley, a Scottish youtuber who covers all things rocket-related, with a emphasis on SpaceX. The author, John D. Clark, is openly opinionated in relating his experiences developing and testing different types of liquid rocket fuel and oxidizers. It's funny, ghastly, critical (with fingerpointing, sometimes at himself), and one has to wonder why more people weren't killed in these labs, and whether the US has a whole lot more contaminated sites that just aren't reported.
Some of the experimental fuels/oxidizers are so corrosive that they eat through tanks, and the fumes dare not be breathed. When the Navy balked at storing ground to air missiles below deck out of fear of a rocket leak, Clark and other propulsion researchers strove to come up with a toothpaste-like fuel that, if it leaked, would not seep down and cause the ship to sink. But of course that just introduced a whole new can of worms.
So many ideas, strategies, attempts at enhancing performance, and so many gotchas.
Lots of explosions, and chemical equations I somewhat followed (having two semesters of organic chemistry in college). Even without understanding the chemistry, a fascinating and fun read.
Oh. No sword fights. Sorry.
I'm nobody's pony.
