Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants
by Unknown author
87% recommend13% neutral
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If you've not had the pleasure, take some time this weekend to read John D Clark's amazing book Ignition! https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd... (PDF may not render properly in Chrome)
on “Things I Won’t Work With: Peroxide Peroxides (2014)” ↗Also see Ignition, a book on the history of rocket fuel development, which is a great read: https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...
on “Sand won’t save you this time (2008)” ↗Oh, the rocket scientists made it up as well. See https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd... for an entertaining and enlightening history. All sorts of things, such as rocket fuel that was produced in large quantities and put into storage containers before discovering that after sitting on its own for a few years, it became dreadfully unstable. My favorite "WTF" experiment
on “Gell-Mann amnesia effect” ↗One of the most amusing books I've read on the subject is "Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants" (PDF: http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf, Amazon link: https://amzn.to/2WXzWcp), which discusses how science used to be more fun and chemists basically just mixed lots of super…
on “If Rockets Were Transparent [video]” ↗For anyone interested in the development of rocket propellant and related fuel I’d highly recommend ‘Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants’ by John D. Clark.
on “Hypersonic flight: A new fuel for jets and missiles is on the cards” ↗everybody interested in why rocket engines have the amazing ability to turn thrust into fireworks when least expected should read this excellent book on rocket propellant history: http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf. to spark your interest, foreword was written by isaac asimov.
on “SpaceX Falcon 9 Statement on First Stage Engine Anomaly” ↗I'm going to add a link to this most excellent book about rocket propellants called Ignition!: http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf. Foreword by Asimov himself, who was friends with the author. It's an entertaining description of years of work on the topic.
on “SpaceX aims big with massive new rocket” ↗There is a fantastic book by rocket-chemist-turned-science-fiction-author John D Clark called Ignition that documents the research and discovery of liquid propellants. It's a great read - out of print, but available online as a pdf: https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd... I toured the museum in Tuscon in the article when I was in high school - it's still one of my favorite
on “The hidden base that could have ended the world” ↗as usual when talking about exploding rocket engines, go read Ignition! if you haven't already: https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...
on “SpaceX rocket engine explodes during test at Texas facility” ↗Probably UDMH and nitrogen tetroxide or nitric acid referred to as Devil's Venom in Russia apparently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_venom The same mix was what blew up in Damascus Titan missile explosion as told in the book Command and Control. Luckily the 9-megaton warhead didn't go off. I recommend the book Ignition if you are interested in these things (free pdf http://library.scien
on “Rocket Launch in New Zealand Brings Quick, Cheap Space Access” ↗If you enjoy this type of stuff, a great read is: IGNITION! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...
on “Smoke seen for miles as SpaceX Crew Dragon suffers anomaly at Cape Canaveral” ↗> chemical rocket propulsion. If anyone wants to learn more about the history of this specific/niche topic, there's actually an interesting book (with a foreword by Isaac Asimov), Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants by John Drury Clark: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/677285.Ignition_ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Drury_Clark * PDF copy: http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf
on “Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)” ↗If your goal is to actually learn chemistry, I would recommend textbooks. I'm not a chemist myself so I can't give a good recommend. If your goal is to learn somechemistry while being entertained, https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd... is a classic, and https://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Book-Gunpowder-Graphene-Mil... is by the author of the blog post that this is about.
on “Perfluorocubane is (as you would expect) weird” ↗Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants Ignition breaks down the fallacy that huge innovations come from large professional teams. It demonstrates that getting the right mix of risk tolerance in your team is a large part of innovation. Too…
on “Ask HN: What are some of the best books you have read in 2022?” ↗I'm just reading Ignition! http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf about the development of rocket propellants; a very technical and interesting chemistry book. At one time the author experimented with mercaptans and got similar reactions from his labmates ;-)
on “This phosphine will get you fired” ↗