Ignition! Audiobook By John Drury Clark, Isaac Asimov - foreward cover art

Ignition!

An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

Ignition!

By: John Drury Clark, Isaac Asimov - foreward
Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

Ignition! is the inside story of the Cold War era search for a rocket propellant that 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 that eventually took men to the moon, missiles to the planets, and satellites to outer space. A classic work in the history of science, listeners will want to get their hands on this influential classic, available for the first time in decades.

©2018 John Drury Clark (P)2018 Random House Audio Aeronautics & Astronautics Astronomy Astronomy & Space Science History History & Culture History & Philosophy Military Military Science Science Witty Funny Thought-Provoking
Fascinating History • Humorous Writing • Entertaining Performance • Engaging Storytelling • Informative Content
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
hilarious anecdotes about explosions and government contracting. if you don't know any chemistry at the start you'll know some at the end.

you don't need to know chemistry.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a classic and very fun history of liquid rocket propellants up till 1970ish. it contains some chemistry but I think you can enjoy it even if you only have a decent high school chemistry background. You definitely should look some of the chemicals up so you have a feel for what they are.

the performance is quite good. The only flaw is that the narrator occasionally misreads Al as A capital i instead of A lowercase L and the same with Cl. I was able to follow it.

I first read this book as a college student and loved it, it's nice to be able to come back to it after a bit more than a decade.

A Fantastic Read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Unless you’re a professional chemist the vast majority of what’s discussed will be way over your head, however it was a great history of propellants and the performance was very entertaining!

Very technical but the performance is great!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In audiobook format, it should many of the complaints - poor scanning and the like - that going the print book. it is read with spirit and clarity. Its only downfall is an artifact of the type of book and the audio format, that is, reading out chemical and mathematical formula.

An audiobook only flawed by the unavoidable.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I always enjoy learning about them history of a topic, how something came to be, and this hits that squarely for me. Some of the specific compound names can make it difficult to follow if you're not familiar with chemistry, but even decades past my last chemistry course, it wasn't a problem.

highly entertaining, very informative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
a version of this book for solid fuels would be great h h j j

hilarious and informative

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Just listen to this. Just listen to this If you enjoy two of the following subjects (or none, just listen):

Explosions
More explosions
Engineering explosions
Sly smart humor
chemistry
Rockets
Making rocket scientists appear human
History
Some controlled Explosions
Aerospace

Just listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved the detaining level and the humorous mix. Well enjoyed! Not for the faint of heart looking for an easy read tho.

Verry interesting for the knowledgehungry engineer

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I've had to listen to it multiple times to understand even a little, but it is so interesting and educational that it has been easy to do.

Great book on crazy hard subject

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Unless you are into very technical chemistry of fuels this will be a tedious listen. Consists of mostly failures of various chemical combinations of potential fuel. Many ending in injury or death. This is also a through history of fuel during the past century.

Very technical.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews