The three fatalities in the Scaled accident were not involved in the cold
flow test. They were bystanders, watching the test through a chain link
fence. Any nitrous exposure they experienced was entirely incidental to
their injuries. Their injuries were due to their being perforated by pieces
of the carbon composite run tank, which suffered a BLEVE upon being
punctured by the injector under test. The injector was fired into the run
tank by the explosion of the Case/Throat/Nozzle (CTN) simulator. I do not
know why the CTN simulator exploded..
There were no enclosed spaces anywhere on the Scaled test site that day.
Asphyxiation was not a factor. Those people died because they were not
under cover when the hardware they were watching exploded.
-R
On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 3:04 AM John Dom <johndom@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Lloyd Droppers wrote on 220416:
A few people died during space shuttle launch prep
https://nsc.nasa.gov/SFCS/SystemFailureCaseStudyFile/Download/523
Albeit the damage of pure N2 exposure proved fatal in the STS incident I
found it amazing their heart had kept beating (and maybe their breathing as
well?) for so long after their extraction to air.
As to the Scaled Composites cold flow fatalities due to N2O exposure (page
4): did they perform that test inside a non-ventilated compound as if it
were LOX?
jd
