Woah! Weird and interesting. Links led me to learn more about Crowley and Hubbard. Strange stuff. Thanks.
OT (Military): What Is the Fuel That Propels Long-Range Missiles?
- Thread starter RutgersRaRa
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Woah! Weird and interesting. Links led me to learn more about Crowley and Hubbard. Strange stuff. Thanks.
Not sure. We may have been told that during initial training, but if we were, it was quickly forgotten. I remember the fuel and oxidizer after so many years because it was drilled into us that if we were in the silo or above ground and saw a BFRC (big freakin' red cloud), it meant there was a leak and we should get away ASAP. They would both kill you if inhaled or eat through skin and meat down to the bone if you came in contact with either.
The Sarfighter was dangerous for pilots, but it was awesome. Basically a jet powered rocket with its tiny wings.
Scary stuff. I read Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser abou tthe Titan II that blew up in Arkansas.
Go on...Scary stuff. I read Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser abou tthe Titan II that blew up in Arkansas.
Scary stuff. I read Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser abou tthe Titan II that blew up in Arkansas.
Absolutely. Loved blowing stuff up as a kid. I remember dropping lit M80s into those huge Ernest & Julio Gallo wine jugs and running our asses off to get behind nearby trees before they blew up. Once caught a piece of shrapnel in my arm, lol. Also used to like filling the toilet bowl with shaving cream, then mixing in some lighter fluid and lighting the mixture off in a huge fireball - got in trouble for singeing the ceiling and had to repaint it. We also used to have bottle rocket fights - luckily nobody got maimed. Mixing smoking dope, drinking beer/wine and blowing stuff up probably wasn't that smart.
Then in my junior year in HS, had an awesome chemistry teacher, who taught me how to blow things up safely, after class. Like putting a little sodium metal in water or spelling out one's name in methanol on the floor using a squirt bottle, then lighting it up - always while wearing safety glasses and only using small "safe" amounts of various fuels. I'm sure these things helped lead to the career in chem eng'g, lol. I'm also guessing teachers don't do that kind of thing anymore, which I completely understand, although I'm glad I got to see such things. Looking back, I'm probably lucky I never got hurt - unfortunately, major accidents still happen today...
I'll never forget being at a process safety testing conference about 6 years ago and eating lunch with a bunch of academics in the explosives research field, which is very heavily empirical (lots of lab testing required). They all had stories of crazy stuff they did and said how much lab safety had improved over the last 30-40 years - one guy even said that in the "old days" people occasionally died from explosions gone bad in the lab, whereas nowadays, people tend to only lose a finger or two. He was only half joking.
This guy was from Texas Tech and it turns out that a year later they had a major accident in their explosives research lab, in which a grad student lost 3 fingers - they had really poor lab safety systems in place, as per the CSB report - there was supposed to be a 100 mg limit on synthesizing experimental explosives, but the grad student decided to make a batch of 10 grams to ensure consistency in subsequent work and compounded that by trying to grind the whole 10 g up via mortar and pestle, in order to remove lumps (instead of test grinding a very small sample) - the material detonated (many of these explosives are shock sensitive) in his hands.
The year before this happened, we put in a system at work strictly limiting work on potentially shock sensitive compounds to 100 mg or less and it's well communicated and followed. It didn't take a huge amount of convincing, as a couple of our chemists had had some pretty serious incidents, i.e., explosions with only very minor injuries, working with explosive/reactive compounds that could have been far worse if they had been using more material. Showing before and after pictures of a blown up lab hood gets everyone's attention, usually.
http://www.csb.gov/csb-releases-inv...es-in-university-safety-management-practices/
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Enough with the watered-down horsecrap already!!! Tell us about the nitro experiments that went wrong, because we all know you've got THOSE skeletons in your closet.
That was one of the other squadron's sites. Nothing dangerous ever happened in the 4 years I was stationed in Arkansas. Weird yes; dangerous, no.Scary stuff. I read Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser abou tthe Titan II that blew up in Arkansas.
