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From: finley@snuffy.lerc.nasa.gov (Brian Finley)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Fire in Space
Message-ID: <1991Feb11.185010.18933@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>
Date: 11 Feb 91 18:50:10 GMT
Sender: news@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov
Reply-To: finley@snuffy.lerc.nasa.gov (Brian Finley)
Organization: NASA/Lewis Research Center, Cleveland
Lines: 38

In article 11310 Alan Hepburn states:

>Wasn't this experiment run on the last Shuttle flight?  At least, I
>thought I remembered hearing that one of the astronauts was going to
>try lighting a match, or a candle, to evaluate the effects of microgravity
>on a flame (a hot one, not a verbal one).

The experiment he refers to is the Solid Surface Combustion Experiment
which was developed here at NASA Lewis.  The experiment did fly on the
last shuttle mission and will fly on several more missions.  A sample
of ashless paper was burned and filmed for appoximately one minute.
Future experiments will use different materials to burn and different
levels of oxygen in the burn chamber.  The next scheduled flight of the
experiment is on the SLS-1 mission in MAY '91 STS-40.  One of the future
materials to be burned will be polymethylacrylate (plexiglass).

The project objectives are:(I took this from one of there states reports)

The objective of the Solid Surface Combustion Experiment is to determine the 
mechanism of gas-flame spread over solid fuel surfaces in the absence of
buoyancy-induced or externally imposed gas-phase flow.  Measurements in
low-gravity environment of flame shape and rate of flame spread will be
made.  This data will provide insight into relative importance of 
gas-phase momentum generated by vaporization/pyrolysis of the fuel surface
and the diffusion of gas-phase fuel in controlling fuel/air mixing.
Temperature measurements of both the fuel surface and the gas phase will
provide an indication of forward heat conduction in both the solid and the 
vapor phases; it also will provide qualitative information on the radiant
heat flux to and from the fuel surface.

The Principal Investigator for the SSCE is Prof. R. Alternkirch of
Mississippi State University.

--
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Brian Finley  /  To err is human-and to blame it on a computer is even more so
Internet: finley@snuffy.lerc.nasa.gov
Phone: +1 216-891-2975