Blast Off

by Ken McCraken and Ken McCracken

Dr Ken McCracken was founding chief of the CSIRO Division of Mineral Physics in Sydney, and Director of the CSIRO Office of Space Science and applications, until his retirement in 1989. He now... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1741106443
• ISBN13: 9781741106442
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: New Holland Publishers
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Another Feynmanesque Book of Tales

Ken McCraken's memoir reads like Richard Feynman's books of personal adventures and funny tales: a bit autobiographical, a bit entwined into historical events, and always entertaining. While this book is not as amusing as Feynman's, it carves a path through the career of a young scientist in the world of rocket science and, in an unusually open and interesting angle, gives a glimpse of the mistakes and politics involved in project-managing successful endeavors. The editor missed a couple of typos towards the end, but the book is very well written, and grabs your attention in a remarkable way. I read it comfortably on a coast to coast flight (it is a 300 pages paperback), and it considerably eased the pain of today's travel in steerage. Scientists and even technical Project Managers will enjoy reading of McCracken's adventures, and some of his politely mean Australian expressions are worth remembering for difficult meetings ;-)