It doesn't take a rocket scientist..
596398
to figure out that the Beastie Boys are one of the most influential, creative, and orginal groups today. From the hard rockish "Fight for your Right.." to the new-age "Intergalatic" it shows The  BB's metamorphisis from one type of genre to another. Sh%t, they even have  a brazilian song and a "Benny & The Jets" cover.
673797
Ranging from dcumentary to fiction this book can only be characterised as a technological thriller. Crichton masters to this kind of books but we are going to see where he lacks. The book certainly is not an adventure,  neither a charac- ter driven adventure since he presents to us a lot of  these characters, but only on the surface and he takes them back and forth  to a non stop  action, putting them to cope with different situations,  something that diffuses the attention of the reader, since these actions  are not dense, while certainly are branched around a central idea, his  plot. And here, the plot is not a mystery, it's straightforward, while  Crichton in some places is very much expected and in some other places (few  but well placed) unexpected. He also exaggerates a lot (e.g a handycam that  is bouncing all over but never destroyed, his he- roes become comics  superheores, justifications that are too simple, etc). As to characters we  said that are surface attributed and not well placed, neither delved into  and the book never becomes the brain-psychology type that a real novel  requires. Crichton is still scripting, something that means a fast book,  with tempos that are climaxing towards the end. The only real offer of the  book is the documenary side of the aviation technology/manufacturing, where  it really hits bullseye. You're gonna learn somethings. Narration is again  simple and not literary, as we are used by the author and the scenes flow  without any hinder. The book still becomes intense and this makes it an  interesting reading, but not a real novel and not not a book for readers  that expect much. It could be more dense, it could be more dramatised (I  wonder how a man that writes/creates ER can not put that hind itno his  books), less exaggerated. Still a fair reading and obviously a real  Crichton.
1231336
At some point books on science history begin to drag. This one did not! For that reason alone I gave it five stars. This book does shine a light on eccentric scientists...with some bordering on near sociopathy. But the majority are driven by the need to better understand science and its ability to help mankind...even if their lives are put on the line.
3140520
Who can resist the mere title and cover of this book?  The story itself begs for Hollywood treatment.  A girl who grows up with abusive parents and siblings runs away from home to go to college and manages to land a job working as a chemical engineer at Plumbrook Station during the height of WWII formulating TNT (leaving midway through college for the job).  Along the way, she discovers love and loss when her out of wedlock child is put up for adoption.  When she moves to California, her mathematical skills and chemical insight developed during the war land her a job as the only woman working in a facility of 900 men at Rocketdyne.  Despite having no college degree (she is officially an "analyst", not an engineer") and being a woman, she gets one of the toughest assignments at the company.  The Russians have beat the US to space with Sputnik, and Von Braun needs a rocket propellant that will work in the existing Redstone rocket to get it into orbit.  Little can be changed in the rocket - the secret must lie in the chemistry.  I love any good tale where the engineer plays the hero.

The book itself is a labor of love by George Morgan, the son of Mary Sherman Morgan.  Through interviews with her former coworkers, he attempts to find out about the secret work she did so he can publicize her contribution to the US space effort.  The problem (as noted by another review), is that the book is truly hard to verify.  He doesn't document his conversations well (he is a playwright, not a biographer), and many of the conversations are obviously the product of his fertile imagination.  It makes the narrative strong and compelling, but you know that much of it must be conjecture.  Unfortunately, that conjecture and the lack of notes on the facts does damage to his mother's legacy.  I would prefer a short 5-10 page epilogue with the bare facts as known including sources such as interviews.  Sadly that much is missing from the book.

As an engineer, I appreciated the author's approach.  He shows how Mary Sherman Morgan first decided the specifications of what she needed (specific impulse, density, availability, etc), and the proceed backwards to figure out what material would make the product she envisioned she needed.  Along the way, the book is also a tale of growing up in North Dakota, the lives of the Nazi German rocket engineers, the Russian Space Program, and the US Space Program.  The perspective shifts time and place quite a bit, which is not always handled smoothly, but it is effective.

The short of it is that I really enjoyed the book and as inspiration for engineers and scientists, male or female, it is wonderful.  I would approach the history with caution, but still would recommend the book.  Note - discussions of out of wedlock birth might limit the books appropriateness for older readers.
4202303
The science is becoming reachable. At least the nano technology appears so. I refuse to believe in a future that does not contain some form of interstellar travel.  It will probably be very different from any thing we imagine. The life style differences on Earth are marked.  Moving away from this planet can only exacerbate change. I wish I could see it.
1033181
The hero isn't. He is rather like James Bond, surviving various failures by unlikely means which is too much for me to accept.
4658546
It's strange how many "the world is going to end" books cross my desk. Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century--On Earth and Beyond is the latest offering is by Sir Martin Rees, England's Astronomy Royal, and delves into the possiblility that the fate of humanity, the Earth, and maybe even the entire universe is in the hands of well-intentioned (or malicious) scientists as they push the boundaries of nature.
Scientists will destroy the world! We've all heard that before, but found it kind of a strange statement coming from one of the more prominent scientists in the world. In "Our Final Hour", however, Rees makes some well-reasoned arguments about the dangers of scientific exploration. Not that we shouldn't explore nature, just that we should be mindful of the risks and take extra precautions.
The book is a quick read, only 228 pages, and takes us through the range of doomsday scenarios that scientists can unleash: environmental disasters that warm/cool the Earth and make it unlivable; bioterrorism that could unleash a plague of germs on the populace; and exotic physics experiments that could convert all matter in the universe into something... unpleasant.
Rees is calm and reasoned in his arguments; at no point does he stray into "science is bad" rants. Instead, he adopts the tone of a scientific professional, concerned about the ethical implications of scientific discovery. But he doesn't argue that science should be slowed down, in fact, Rees believes that it's pretty much impossible to stop scientific development. For every country that has a ban on genetic research, there will be one happy to support it. And technology will allow the tools to create viruses and other nastiness by a much larger group of people - some with nasty intentions.
I guess that's where the book fell down a bit for me. It offers up lots challenges the world could face from science, but it's short on solutions that could help guide policy. I got the impression that Rees feels largely pessimistic that anything can really be done to slow progress, and the inevitable disasters science could cause. It's unrealistic to tell scientists what they can and can't work on; even more difficult to enforce ethical guidelines; and probably impossible to stop technology from falling into the wrong hands. The only hope Rees sees is in human spaceflight - essentially escaping the problem and heading to the stars. That's all well and good, but the Earth is where I keep all my stuff. There's got to be more than that. I was hoping for a much longer book that offered up some deeper policy suggestions, but I suspect the implications are just too far reaching to make realistic suggestions.
Still, it's an interesting read.
2397479
In Imaginary Weapons, Sharon Weinberger, describes a hare-brained project, financed by the Pentagon, to make a Hafnium bomb. The project started when a scientist at the  University of Texas at Dallas claimed that he was able to cause the release of significant gamma radiation by bombarding an isomer of Hafnium with low energy X-rays. Never mind that the experiment contradicted the known laws of nuclear physics. Never mind that no major lab, Argonne National Laboratories or Lawrence Livermore, were able to duplicate the experiment.

Never mind that the JASONs, the emminent scientists that the military uses to pass judgment on the viability of projects, declared the project worthless. Never mind that there was no real supply of Hafnium isomers of the type used and that creating them would cost about a billion dollars a gram. Never mind that, even if all the scientist were wrong, and, through some miracle, the proper Hafnium isomer could be obtained, it would be so radioactive that only a suicide bomber could use it. The fact was that the Pentagon had its heart set on the bomb and was more than willing to pay your tax dollars

to get it.

The story of the Hafnium bomb is told very well by Ms Weinberger, who has reported on defense technology and national security since 2001 for Slate and for the Washington Post

Magazine. Ms Weinberger does not expect the reader to be conversent with the nuclear physics nor does she try to teach it. She deals with the people involved with the project and has a wonderful technique of inserting common sense observations that will often bring a smile to the reader's lips and usually a chuckle.

Although it could be, this is not a political book in any way. Ms Weinberger avoids political comment scrupulously. She just lets the facts talk to the reader.

Buy this book and read it. You will have great fun doing so. But, if you are like this reviewer, you will also be angry. On the day that I bought the book, a mother of a young soldier called in to a radio talk show. She complained that her son, a private in Army intelligence was being sent to Iraq and was told that he had to buy for himself, a canteen, so that he may have fresh water while on the desert, a magazine to hold the ammunition for his weapon, and various other equipment. The total cost, to him was about $1000, one month's wages. The Pentagon apparently has no money for canteens, but plenty of money for foolishness.
38201
Rocketeers provides a quick introduction to the people making the current boom in private space flight happen. It is a well written book that covers the people involved in an accessible way. The advent of private space flight that may be available to ordinary people makes this an exciting time for anyone interested in space.

The author is a journalist and writer, not an engineer or technologist. This shows in the writing of Rocketeers. It is a smooth flowing easy read that focuses on personalities with only the briefest mention of the technology involved and little discussion of the economics. This makes the book entertaining and approachable, but it leaves much of the story untold. I would have liked to read more about the competing technologies and how the different companies have chosen them. The whole topic of whether these companies can possibly be economically viable is not really examined at all. That left the book feeling a little light weight to me.

Rocketeers does succeed in providing a snap shot of an interesting time. Its broad overview and focus on the personalities will be helpful to readers who have not been following these events.
2184681
Stephen Hawking is hardly a man who needs an introduction. His reputation as a scientist specializing in physics, astronomy and mathematics speaks for itself. The Earth (five billion years old) and the universe (multiply by three) need not an introduction either.
In A Brief History of Time Hawking attempts to offer the reader a synopsis of the topics needed to help the novice understand the relationship between time, space, earth and the universe and to do so without the use of formulae - he cheats once. His attempt at simplicity does not necessarily ensure a simple read, however, and topics like The General Theory Of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Event Horizon, Black Holes and The String Theory come fast and furious at one like a super particle at CERN. The cover of the book gives Hawking's main trajectory away hastily, although it discusses them and everything in-between as succinctly as possible.

Ironically describing not only the 'history', but also the future the book reaches into science, fact and theorem to illustrate its knowledge, which is incidentally a good time to note the existence of a subsequent version featuring pictures and graphics to better illuminate its contents. Several pages are allotted to characters like Einstein, Newton and others as a means of introduction in addition to Hawking's discussion of god and theology and his refutation of common beliefs in this regard. Otherwise, having noted Hawking's not-so-subtle allusions to himself and his achievements one is reminded of the depth and vastness of the scientist's knowledge and the probable justification for the self-referencing.

A Brief History of Time is twenty years old at the time of this writing and several books by different authors have followed it. Such is the nature of technology today that mankind has since augmented its knowledge, although whether in the context of several billion years that is truly a concern is up to the reader's discretion. Not an easy read; not a simple matter, but a topic anyone with thirst for knowledge needs to delve deeper into. This book would be a good beginning.
1264259
Never knew this even happened...nor did my friends in the aerospace industry.  Quite novel in the heist of a limited and "valuable" resource for science.  His genius excels in thinking through and developing the "the heist of the Century."  A good, easy read that will delight the reader.  Comical at times, but quite serious when you consider the extraordinary efforts NASA and our government make to insure this never happens.  BUT IT DID!!!
4195152
The Martian is a sort of space age Robinson Crusoe in which a member of a NASA crew is stranded on Mars when the crew is forced to leave. Mark Watley is left behind and presumed dead. But he survived and is in a precarious position with no way to contact the outside world and a limited supply of food and water. Undaunted, he sets about trying to stay alive until some means of rescue can arrive. The people at the Johnson Space Center come to realize that he is still alive and the story switches back and forth between Watleys survival efforts and NASAs rescue plan. As a layperson I found it difficulty to understand much of the action. There is really no suspense involved since we know Watley will be saved in the end. His upbeat personality and humor makes for interesting reading, but not enough to offset my lack understanding of what he is doing and why. He ends the book with the comment: The cost of my survival must have been hundreds of millions of dollars My thought on reading this comment was to consider how many more lives could have been saved with this sum, lives of children dying from neglect, lives of refugees from war, etc. Sure it is only fiction and no real money was involved, but it does make me wonder about priorities.

The book will be of primary interest to those who are knowledgeable about the technology. My feeling is that the movie version might be more entertaining than the book. Accordingly I rate it at three stars.
4090990
This is not a story about molemen or saucers. It's about work. (The molemen are, of course, only occasional). It's about a person who's held back from the wide world by the limitations of a small town upbringing and the daily grind. It doesn't end up mattering that much that the world is a little wider than our own. But Mel is a little different from the others around him, different enough to choose friendliness instead of xenophobia, and the consequences of this play out over the course of the story.

It's well written and has some great characters. And it's written from a perspective that is all too often missing from science fiction.
3070192
If you don't get a tool you will not have fun... its possible but it is not easy.
4177994
This is not a perfect book, but it is an enjoyable one. There is humor and fear and courage and suspense. The science is the star here. The dialog comes across stilted, and not just mission control stilted. That stuff sounds right, it's the ordinary conversations that don't flow. But that's cool. That's not the story. The creative problem solving took me back to my childhood, waiting anxiously to see if Apollo 13 would come home safely. That feeling of tension was captured well.
4922460
The scenario postulated in Ignition isn't too far fetched, and Anderson and Beason do a credible job fleshing the story out...It's an exciting story that kept me up half the night reading it...
Of course, it's hard for me to picture a guy with a broken foot trying to take out every terrorist in sight, but that's just one flaw I saw in the storyline...The other obvious flaw was the the replacement commander had been a mission specialist on three previous flights...Not likely to happen, as they mention prior to that that each shuttle commander had at least two missions as a pilot under his belt...
Also, it seemed kind of pointless to move the Launch Control Center and the Vehicle Assembly Building, which sit right beside each other.  Unlike the Russian space launch facilities, Kennedy Space Center is a major tourist attraction as well as a national asset.
Overall, though, Ignition is definitely worth a read...
4221475
I have to agree with the other 4 & 5 star reviews.  The book is thoroughly engaging for engineers, scientists and the amateur.  Not since I read Willy Ley's 'Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel' have I been so rapt in a history of space flight.  I am surprised that this book hasn't been given more interest by the public.  Perhaps it's  just had insufficient publicity.