I'm surprised to hear that in the Scaled explosion at Mojave, it was the
CTN simulator that exploded and shot the injector into the tank. I had
guessed that the tank suffered a nitrous oxide dissociation reaction near
the end of the test when it was nearly empty of liquid (but had lots of gas
at high pressure). I've never seen an official report detailing the
technical aspects of the Scaled explosion. Is there one publicly available?
Or is that kind of information still tied up in litigation?
On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 10:42 AM, Randall Clague <rclague@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I am not with Agile. Jeff is positioning Agile to be the 21st century
version of Scaled Composites, essentially vehicle design for hire. I'm a
system safety guy and a government guy, and at Agile's scale, Jeff doesn't
have enough work for me to put me on the payroll.
I am working freelance, hanging out my shingle as RSpace, proven expertise
in System Safety and Government Liaison, 90+ manned/RLV flights, no
mishaps, yada yada yada, shoot me an e-mail if you want a copy of my CV.
I'll get a web site up when I figure out what I want it to be for.
Currently under contract, expecting to be available again in July.
Thanks,
-R
On Fri, Apr 22, 2016 at 4:35 AM, John Dom <johndom@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The injector being the N2O tank explosion culprit was new for me.
I take it you are with Agile Aero now?
jd
*From:* arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
*On Behalf Of *Randall Clague
*Sent:* vrijdag 22 april 2016 12:39
*To:* arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [AR] Re: breathing nitrogen
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
