My comment serves no purose other than to say YES. I love this book dearly, it's probably the best written and most enjoyable niche technical book ever written.

My comment serves no purose other than to say YES. I love this book dearly, it's probably the best written and most enjoyable niche technical book ever written. It's an absolute gem. I high commend it to people as an excellent short read. One of those instances where you say 'why on earth would I be interested in the history of liquid rocket propellents?' but you should read it anyway - it's massively enjoyable, some bits are laugh-out-loud funny, and a tour de force in technical writing and communicating complex ideas to non specialist readers. It actually got me into rocket propulsion research, having been a signal processing, ML and control theory person by background. May I offer it my highest commendation to the curious HNer and thank you baq for providing a link to it.