It Looked Good on Paper

A remarkable compendium of wild schemes, mad plans, crazy inventions, and truly glorious disastersEvery phenomenally bad idea seemed like a good idea to someone. How else can you explain the Ford Edsel or the sword pistolabsolutely absurd creations that should have never made it off the drawing board? It Looked Good on Paper gathers together the most flawed plans, half-baked ideas, and downright ridiculous machines throughout history that some second-rate Einstein decided to foist on an unsuspecting populace with the best and most optimistic intentions. Some failed spectacularly. Others fizzled after great expense. One even crashed on Mars. But every one of them at one time must have looked good on paper, including:The lead water pipes of RomeThe Tacoma Narrows Bridgebuilt to collapseThe Hubble telescopethe $2 billion scientific marvel that couldn't seeThe Spruce GooseHoward Hughes's airborne atrocity: big, expensive, slow, unstable, and made of woodWith more than thirty-five chapters full of incredibly insipid inventions, both infamous and obscure, It Looked Good on Paper is a mind-boggling, endlessly entertaining collection of fascinating failures.