Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants

This  book 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, readers will want to get their
hands on this influential classic, available for the first time in
decades.