Scott Manley

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. This newly reissued debut book in the Rutgers University Press Classics imprint 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.

Anybody who has watched many movies or television shows has seen them-the ubiquitous silver suits worn by pilots as they explore the unknown. They are called pressure suits, and one can trace their lineage to Wiley Post or, perhaps, a bit earlier.There are two kinds of pressure suits: partial pressure and full pressure. David Clark, the man, once pointed out that these were not very good names, but they are the ones that stuck. In a partial-pressure suit, the counter-pressure is not as complete as in a full-pressure suit, but it is placed so that shifts in body fluids are kept within reasonable limits. On the other hand, a full-pressure suit, which is an anthropomorphic pressure vessel, creates an artificial environment for the pilot.One type of pressure suit is not necessarily "better" than the other, and both partial pressure and full pressure suits are still in limited use around the world. Both type of suits have benefits and limitations and, by and large, pilots dislike both, even while acknowledging their necessity. For the past 60 years, they have been an indispensible part of a small fragment of the aviation world.Although space suits, which differ from pressure suits in subtle, but important ways, have been well covered in literature, pressure suits have gone unheralded except as introductions to the space suit histories. This e-book is an attempt to correct that, and covers pressure suits from the beginning through the end of the Space Shuttle Program.