Ignition!

An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants

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Ignition!

By: John Drury Clark, Isaac Asimov - introduction

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

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About this listen

Ignition! is the inside story of the Cold War era search for a rocket propellant which 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 which eventually took men to the moon, missiles to the planets, and satellites to outer space. A classic work in the history of science, and described as "a good book on rocket stuff...that's a really fun one" by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, listeners will want to get their hands on this influential classic, available for the first time in decades.

Aeronautics & Astronautics

Astronomy & Space Science

History

History & Culture

History & Philosophy

Military

Military Science

Science

Witty

Astronomy

Technology

Classics

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I delayed listening to this for a long time because of other reviews as i have no scientific education (just a layman Spaceflight fan) and was worried it may be a textbook more than a narrative. It is not. It reads almost like the biography of a rocket scientist (although it is much wider ranging than that and i found it entertaining and had a few laughs. The narrator is fantastic at conveying the writers obvious enthusiasm and levity. Large portions of it where over my head certainly but graciously it was far from being the oblivious actor drily mispronouncing his way through chemical equations and statistics charts that I'd feared. I could only name the more common propellants going in and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thank you so much for recording such a rare and niche book.