
Ignition: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants (1972) [pdf] - Tomte
http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf
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scottlocklin
This is one of the best technical books ever written.

My review on amazon:

"Rocket books are often page turners. I reviewed Sutton's "Rocket Propulsion
Systems" a few years back. I picked it up as a cure for insomnia, and ended up
reading most of it in one night. The nice thing about rocket science; it's not
really "rocket science." If you have a background in physics or chemistry,
rocket science is a perfect level of semi-light reading. There is chemistry,
neat, but conceptually simple thermodynamics, mechanical engineering and
materials science. None of it is at a really high level: rocket science is the
type of thing you could do on a slide rule. People did.

This book has a similar quality; it's pretty easy to read (though I confess I
bogged down a bit in some of the chemistry sections). I didn't read it for the
science, though. I don't really care about rocket fuels. I learned the basics
about rocket propellants from Sutton. It's conceptually simple "look at the
periodic table" stuff. This book is about the implementation details, and how
they were discovered. I don't plan on building any rockets any time soon, so
it's more or less irrelevant to me. I suppose this could be helpful to folks
who might have some ambitions to make some fancy rockets, but are too precious
to use LOX and Kerosene or dinitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine.

Mostly, I read it because it's uproariously funny. Research involving physical
objects is funny. Why is it funny? Because at the end of the day, we're really
just dumb monkeys playing around with forces we only partially understand.
Rocket research has some of the highest comedic potential because it involves
smelly things which explode. Had I only known this, I would have arranged to
have been born in the 1920s, so I could do all the cool research that happened
in the 1950s. Alas, the heroic age of rocket fuel research is now over.

Still, we have these anecdotes, which are unique, and possibly eternal. To
quote the book, "if you, gentle reader, have never seen a nervous rocket
mechanic, complete with monkey suit, being buzzed by nine thousand demented
bats and trying to beat them off with a shovel, there is something missing
from your experience. ""

~~~
WalterBright
> None of it is at a really high level: rocket science is the type of thing
> you could do on a slide rule. People did.

Rockets have a very fine line between a successful mission and failure. That
means you've got to understand the math, do the math correctly, and understand
and account for the limitations of the mathematical models.

Otherwise your rocket will be too heavy to fly, or will explode/disintegrate
when flying.

Some other good rocket reading: "V2" by Dornberger

~~~
pjc50
Ironically a lot of Ignition is about experimentation rather than modeling -
while they could predict the energy of a reaction, all sorts of other vital
properties like detonation resistance had to be found out empirically.

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pjc50
Almost certainly a repost, but it's a tremendous little book. Mix of dry
chemistry lab notes with hair-raising anecdotes. The history of early NASA
rocket fuel research by someone who was there.

See also
[https://archive.org/details/gergel_isopropyl_bromide](https://archive.org/details/gergel_isopropyl_bromide)

~~~
comicjk
I'll second your Gergel recommendation. Gergel's book is not quite as good as
"Ignition" because he brags a little more and gets specific a little less, but
it's still good. The place it's better than "Ignition" is in the descriptions
of the insane risks which early chemists took - with their own lives, their
neighbors' lives, and the lives of anyone living there afterwards. It's a
fascinating piece of anthropology.

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vpribish
Hear, hear! this is fascinating book that anyone interested in rocketry will
enjoy. Even if you are not interested in the engineering or chemistry the
description of the professional community and process of invention is worth
reading.

~~~
masklinn
> this is fascinating book that anyone interested in rocketry will enjoy

It's criminal to limit it to people interested in rocketry. It's also
fascinating to anyone interested in chemistry, engineering, history, and plain
"stuff going boom", one of the Internet's most hilarious stories (Derek Lowe's
"Sand won't save you this time") is essentially a straight excerpt from
Ignition!, on Chlorine Trifluoride:

> It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It
> is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no
> ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such
> things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand,
> and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the
> ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the
> formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk
> of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from
> burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed
> off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the
> problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this
> situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.

And frankly, just open the PDF and look at pages 2 and 3, if that doesn't
convince you the book is worth reading I'm not sure you have a soul.

Plus it's a very short book, the body itself clocks in at under 190 pages.

~~~
vpribish
and since you brought up Mr Lowe, here are his articles on "Things I won't
work with":

[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/thing...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/things-
i-wont-work-with)

~~~
flyinghamster
His "How Not to Do It" articles are also a good read. Some good advice on how
not to deal with liquid nitrogen tanks:
[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2006/03/08/how...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2006/03/08/how_not_to_do_it_liquid_nitrogen_tanks)

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flippyhead
> There are, after all, some chemicals that explode shatteringly, some that
> flame ravenously, some that corrode hellishly, some that poison sneakily,
> and some that stink stenchily. As far as I know, though, only liquid rocket
> fuels have all these delightful properties combined into one delectable
> whole

The intro by Asimov was a delight to read.

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AndrewOMartin
What I wouldn't give for a dead tree version...

is the set of all things worth more than about £10.

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vermontdevil
Great book. But hard to find a print copy and be prepared to pay a LOT. Last
time I saw on Amazon - a print copy was going for over a thousand USD.

Luckily my university library had one so was able to read it. Worth it.

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danieldrehmer
Elon Musk frequently cites this one among his favorites and a key book that
taught him rocketry.

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monochromatic
This book is great. I've read it twice.

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baq
this is a fantastic book, anyone remotely interested in space should read it.

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Irreal
Amazing! Thank You !

