It looked good on paper : bizarre inventions, design disasters, and engineering follies /: bizarre inventions, design disasters, and engineering follies. (©2009)

• Record Type: Book
• Other Titles: Bizarre inventions, design disasters, and engineering follies
• Further Information: Note: Edited by Bill Fawcett.
• Other Names: Fawcett, Bill
• Contents: Introduction: Welcome to the wonderful world of failure -- Past imperfect -- Great Stele of Aksum -- Pipes of Rome -- Great Wall of China -- Tower of Pisa -- Overwhelming success -- Sword pistol -- True saga of the pony express -- Thomas Edison's insistence on the use of DC power -- Modern Mistakes -- Bridge too thin -- Goldie and the goldfish's really, really big cousins -- Overcooking with Atoms -- Contamination in the hills: the Santa Susana Field laboratory -- Under pressure: the first space walk -- Biospherians in the bubble -- Mars or bust -- Myopia in space -- Starr report -- When good ideas are ignored just long enough to turn very, very bad -- Y2K -- Auto Absurdities -- Starter problems -- Well, it worked for trains -- Here they go again ... the people's car -- Built Ford Tinderbox tough -- Quirky little amphicar -- Plane thinking -- Spectacular failure of the Langley Aerodrome -- First US Navy catapult launch -- Where the buffalo drones: the Brewster F2A -- Nazi Kamikaze?: the Selbstopfer -- Little hard to swallow -- Less bang for more bucks: the expensive saga of the F-111 -- Bone of contention: the B-1 bomber -- Faster than a speeding bullet -- When the chopper gets chopped: the RAH-66 comanche -- Double jeopardy -- Plane was invisible until it was killed -- Exit stage left -- Smell-o-vision: mixing odors with cinema -- Nick & Nora: the musical -- By Jeeves -- Big flop in the big top -- End of RSO -- RPG envy -- XFL -- Malpractice assurance -- High-voltage medicine -- Radioactivity is good for your health -- X-ray the feet; it sounds really neat! -- Thalidomide -- Mainstream wonder drug -- That sinking feeling -- Courageous saga of the first submarines -- Sinking of the VASA -- Don't blame it on steam -- Sinking of the Titanic -- Sinkin of HMS Hood -- We shall never again surrender! -- No plan ever survives contact with the enemy -- Whole new battlefield -- Battle strategy that will take your breath away -- Tanks a lot -- Line must be drawn here -- End of the line -- Sword for the masses -- Too good for its own good -- Sneaking in the front door -- Very low-tech firebomb campaign -- Nuclear nonsense -- Holy Grail of firearms -- Heavyweight too heavy to fight -- Double agent -- Sergeant York misses the target -- Expensive pipe dream of missle defense.
• Publisher Details: New York : Harper
• Publication Date: 2009
• Copyright Date: 2009
• Extent: 1 online resource (x, 350 pages)
• Subjects: 904.7; Inventions -- Miscellanea; Disasters -- History; Disasters; Inventions; Electronic books; History; Miscellanea
• Languages: English
• ISBNs: 9780061976964; 0061976962
• Related ISBNs: 9780061358432; 0061358436
• Notes: Note: Print version record.
• Access Rights: Legal Deposit; Only available on premises controlled by the deposit library and to one user at any one time; The Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations (UK).
• Access Usage: Restricted: Printing from this resource is governed by The Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations (UK) and UK copyright law currently in force.