/lit/ - Literature

>>14264674
If it will stop you from whining fine.
This is not exactly sci-fi but close enough (it helps that the book is far better written than the usual sci-fi or even worse fantasy fare).

Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Drury Clark (with foreword by Isaac Asimov)

I can not recommend enough this book. This was a wild and hilarious ride through all the craziness of the propellant research during the hottest years of the Cold War.
These brave and hardy souls routinely came up (and worked with) some of the most hellish concoctions known to man.

I'll just leave this passage:
"There are, after all, some chemicals that explode shatteringly, some
that flame ravenously, some that corrode hellishly, some that poison
sneakily, and some that stink stenchily. As far as I know, though, only
liquid rocket fuels have all these delightful properties combined into
one delectable whole."