Xref: utzoo sci.space.shuttle:2049 sci.space:8442
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: USSR and the Moon [was "Beyond the Energia crisis"]
Message-ID: <1988Nov23.182546.20127@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <880@cernvax.UUCP> <18263@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <18420@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <7827@ihlpl.ATT.COM>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 88 18:25:46 GMT

In article <7827@ihlpl.ATT.COM> knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) writes:
>However, in that article I questioned whether you can really get a
>big explosion out of a failed rocket.  A big messy fireball, yes,
>that would probably melt and destroy the gantry along with the
>crew.  But "everything within a mile?"  And the people in the
>blockhouse?  Maybe if the two tanks of hypergolic fuels
>crunched together you could get a fairly explosive fire?

Hypergolic fuels actually are rather less dangerous, because they ignite
on contact and hence tend to burn rather than explode.  Liquid oxygen
mixed with kerosene, or liquid hydrogen, is an explosive several times
as powerful as TNT.  Ever wonder why the viewing stands at KSC are three
miles from the pads?  It's because an exploding Saturn V could have thrown
debris almost that far -- it would have been the equivalent of a small
nuclear weapon.  A kilogram of TNT is quite an explosion, and we're
talking about *thousands of tons* of more-energetic fuels.
-- 
Sendmail is a bug,             |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
not a feature.                 | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu