The Most Dangerous Rocket Fuels Ever Tested

Hydrofluoric acid is no joke. When I was younger, I worked in a wafer fab (a facility for making integrated circuits) and inadvertently got some 100% HF on the sleeve of my jumpsuit. I only noticed it after about 20 minutes when I saw that the material of the suit was flaking off and disintegrating. I didn't feel any pain until another 10 or 15 minutes while I was on the way to the hospital. The doctors had to inject my arm with a silver solution to try to get the HF to bond to that instead of my bones - my arm was ballooned out to about twice its normal, scrawny size due to the HF and the injected treatment. The pain was almost indescribable. They said I probably only got a few milliliters on me. I was VERY careful of HF after that.

"fluorine is a better oxidizer than oxygen" this is one of those simple sentences that masks an absolute horror for basically any organic substance that doesnt want its oxygen ripped off.

for all his success with propellants, Clark's proudest accomplishment was zero deaths for the program he ran for so many years.

"It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood and test engineers." Drat, there goes my revolutionary plan to line a rocket's interior with test engineers.

“Persuaded to huddle around a chlorine atom” is my favorite chemistry phrase.

That book taught me that rocket propellant researchers have similar ball diameter requirements as test pilots.

I've always pictured one of those "IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS" boxes in the hallway, with a pair of running shoes behind the glass.

"can you make us 100 pounds of dimethylmercury?" - You guys want 20 nukes with launch codes as an extra?

“During the liquid rocket propellant era, a major incident involving ClF₃ occurred the first time a one-ton steel container was loaded with liquid ClF₃ for bulk shipment. The container had been cooled with dry ice to perform the liquid transfer and help make the product safer to handle, since the ClF₃ vapor pressure would only be about 0.007 kg/cm² (0.1 psia) in the subcooled state. However, the dry ice bath embrittled the steel container wall, which split while it was being maneuvered onto a dolly, instantaneously releasing 907 kg (2,000 lb) of cold ClF₃ liquid onto the building floor. The ClF₃ dissolved the 30 cm (12 inch) thick concrete floor and another 90 cm (36 inches) of gravel underneath the spill. The fumes that were generated (chlorine trifluoride, hydrogen fluoride, chlorine, hydrogen chloride, etc.) severely corroded everything that was exposed. One eyewitness described the incident by stating, ‘The concrete was on fire!’” —Safetygram 39: Chlorine Trifluoride © Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., 2004

Asbestos: “I’m fire proof.” Chlorine Trifluoride: “Hold my beer...”

I'd like an Audiobook version of that ... Read by Scott Manley!

Derek Lowe's 'Things I Will Not Work With' blog led me to Ignition. Also worth a read. A quote: "The general rule is, if you’re looking for the worst organic derivatives of any metal, you should hop right on down to the methyl compounds. That’s where the most choking vapors, the brightest flames, and the most panicked shouts and heartfelt curses are to be found. Methyl organometallics tend to be small, reactive, volatile, and ready to party."

My favorite phrase Clark uses in "Ignition!" is "spontaneous disassembly" for "explosion."

Near the top of my list of things I never want to hear in real life: "the concrete is on fire" Next on Nile Red: how to make ClF3

I LOVE that book! And you didn't even mention the monopropellant madness! "Any intimate mixture of a fuel and an oxidizer is a potential explosive, and a molecule with one reducing (fuel) end and one oxidizing end, separated by a pair of firmly crossed fingers, is an invitation to disaster!" He then goes on about how the first monopropellant engines ran on nitroglycerin, and other monoprops that they had "never been able to fire them in a motor, since they invariably detonated before they could be poured into the propellant tank".

One of my favourite lines from the book comes from the chapter on the experimental high-energy liquid monoprops: "On paper, it sounds ideal... But! Any intimate mixture of a fuel and an oxidiser is a potential explosive. And a molecule with one reducing (fuel) end and one oxidising end, separated by a pair of firmly crossed fingers, is an invitation to disaster". This humorously understated comment (in keeping with the rest of the book) confirms the fact that yes, quite a lot of early experimental propellant research involved the chemical equivalent of crossing one's fingers and hoping for the best!

I'm a simple man, I see dangerous and rocket in the title I click.

Sand won't save you this time.

Our catchphrase at XCOR was, "If you can't spill it on your shoe, we don't want to use it." During a pump test, Dan Delong actually detected a small LOX leak when his foot got cold, so he took his shoe off and let it warm up to allow the oxygen to dissipate- so it's a rule we really did use.

Hi I work on the RL10 and back in the 60-70's Pratt an Whitney did extensive testing using the RL10 with hydrazine and fluorine. On the E-7 test stand (deactivated in 1974 torn down in 1995 still had hydrazine trapped in the 1000 gallon tank found out the hard way) We had a whole Fluorine passivation area to treat the hardware. I was to young but saw many test tapes ran very well but when it blew it did so impressively. They also did Hydrogen and fluorine, and hydrazine and oxygen. Take care.