AboutSue Kayton Expertise Engineer who has read thousands of science fiction books and short stories. Can recommend stories on specific subjects and comment on technical feasibility. Especially good at older out-of-print books and authors.
Question This book was read out loud to my grade school class, sometime in the mid Sixties. Some boys had built a large model rocket in the middle of a swamp, that was in turn in the middle of their city. They'd built a paddlewheel boat to reach this launch site. Despite the prohibitions of their parents and authorities, they managed to have a successful launch and recovery. I eventually did enjoy model rocketry in later years, studied astronomy, ended up with a degree in music, and have been running a bicycle shop for twenty one years. I still love astronomy and sci-fi. Thanks for any tips on this book search. Memory hasn't served me with titles "Three Two One Zero" or "Countdown to Zero", or some variation.
Answer one of these titles might be the short story you are looking for. I never read it, but these titles might ring a bell.
Testing...One, Two, Three, Four, published in Analog magazine Dec 1969
The Countdown bu John Haase, printed in the New Yorker Oct 1961
The 7th Annual of the Year’s Best S-F, ed. Judith Merril, Simon & Schuster 1962
Space Suits & Gumshoes, ed. Richard Lunn, Toronto: Macmillan Canada 1972
Countdown, by Kate Wilhelm, collected in The Downstairs Room and Other Speculative Fiction, Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1968
Countdown to Disaster by Isaac Asimov [Union Club], (ss) Gallery Jan 1982; also as “Dollars and Cents”.
Or try looking yourself in this excellent index of old SF stories and books
