4 Quotes by John D. Clark

And it is a nerve-wracking experience to put your ear against a propellant tank and hear it go "glub" -long pause- "glub" and so on. After such an experience many people, myself (particularly) included, tended to look dubiously at peroxide and to pass it by on the other side.

Most of the Navy work on peroxide was not directed towards missiles, but towards what was called "super performance" for fighter planes -an auxiliary rocket propulsion unit that could be brought into play to produce a burst of very high speed- so that when a pilot found six Migs breathing down his neck he could hit the panic button and perform the maneuver known as getting the hell out of here.

Joe? You know that stuff you sent me to test for thermal stability? Well, first, it hasn't got any. Second, you owe me a new bomb, a new Wianco pickup, a new stirrer, and maybe a few more things I'll think of later. And third (crescendo and fortissimo) you'll have a couple of flunkies up here within fifteen minutes to clean up this (-bleep-) mess or I'll be down there with a rusty hacksaw blade..." I specified the anatomical use to which the saw blade would be put. End of conversation.

The only possible source of trouble connected with the acid is its corrosive nature, which can be overcome by the use of corrosion-resistant materials.' Ha! If they had known the trouble that nitrid acid was to cause before it was finally domesticated, the authors would probably have stepped out of the lab and shot themselves.