The Bluffer's Guide to Rocket Science - Softcover

Berlin, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 190604211X ISBN 13: 9781906042110

Publisher: Oval Books, 2008

Synopsis

Introduction

Popular comment has it that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to ...,” as in it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to program a mobile phone.” This is true it takes a teenager. A rocket scientist would intellectualize the whole process, press two buttons at once, and crash the software. The last person you would want to ask is a rocket scientist.

 

Blown opportunities

Many more millionaires have gone bankrupt trying to develop rockets than satellites. They have overlooked the fact that the operative word in controlled explosion” is controlled.

 

Gravity depravity

Nobody knows what gravity really is, so don’t blow your bluffing cover by trying to explain it. The only thing known for certain is that any two physical bodies will attract each other in proportion to their sizes (which fact is best not taken literally by oddly sorted couples).

 

Lunartrick

One Sunday afternoon, the 12-year-old von Braun strapped rockets to a cart, lit the fuse, and sent the fire-spitting vehicle careening down a street . . . . His life-long aim was to send a rocket to the moon. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that flying a lunar mission is tricky.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oval Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 190604211X
• ISBN 13: 9781906042110
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 86