John Clark

An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants

Ignition!

John D. Clark

An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

Timeo Williams

I only wished my understanding of chemistry was deeper.... 

This book will be a reread. John delves deeply into the history of rocket propulsion, from the first ideal by Robbert Goddard to the Space shuttle. It was an early intro to terms such as
 specific impulse - a metric for how efficiently a rocket uses propellant. Dimensionally, thrust/mass flow rate
hydrazine - apparently this and flouride where the gold starred fuels of the book. 

 and hypergolic, meaning that when two propellants make contact they will immediately combust, eliminating the need for an igniter. 

Other interesting notes - calculating the results to what would be emitted out of the rocket nozzle was among the hardest things to do in the launch of Saturn 5, because of the lack of computing power available. 

- Propellant chemists had among the hardest jobs, as they often had to say to the engineers above them that the fuel compounds they were recommended would melt at a higher temp, is unstable, and would violate the laws of thermodynamics.

Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants

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