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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: X-1/2 losses
Message-ID: <1991Mar22.044120.23765@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 22 Mar 91 04:41:20 GMT
References: <1991Mar7.012839.29519@cbnews.att.com> <1991Mar8.022040.7569@cbnews.att.com> <1991Mar13.001146.4618@cbnews.att.com> <1991Mar18.004909.24447@cbnews.att.com>
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: emory!Dixie.Com!stan@gatech.edu (Stan Brown)
>>X-1, X-2 - Loss of 4 vehicles, some crew, and one carrier aircraft
>>due to a chemical in a gasket that was explosive when in contact with LOX.
>
>	I hadn't heard of this could you tell us more about it?

The problem wasn't a "chemical", actually.  The real problem was that nobody
really appreciated that almost *any* organic material soaked in LOX is a
powerful explosive.  The LOX plumbing used gaskets made of a chemically
treated form of leather.  They finally figured this out when they had a
gasket explode while the plane containing it was still on the ground.

Even in rockets, liquid hydrogen gets all the bad press but liquid oxygen
is much more dangerous.
-- 
"[Some people] positively *wish* to     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
believe ill of the modern world."-R.Peto|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry