Re: Return to the moon

Once upon a time, Matt Ion <soundy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
>> The 100% oxygen atmosphere at ground pressure was a
>> problem waiting to happen,
>
>That's what I'm talking about, "seemed like a good idea at the time."

You cut off the part where I said there was more than one contributing
factor. Given as much flammable material was in that capsule, it is
quite possible that a fire could have happened in normal Earth air.

>Okay, so "rushing" was a major contributing factor to the fire, and it
>probably would have happened anyway. Would it have been as catastrophic
>without the 100% oxygen atmosphere? Very likely not.

Since it still took something like 2 minutes to open the hatch, it is
quite likely that it would have been fatal.

I heard *** Gordon talk a couple of weeks ago, and one thing he said
about Apollo I was that the inside of the capsule was practically
wall-papered with velcro. They wanted to be able to stick a pen or
flight plan or whatever anywhere. However, the glue (and maybe the
velco itself) happened to be flammable; nobody had really thought about
it. They just loaded up the capsule with materials that are flammable
in normal Earth air (and worse in 100% oxygen) without realizing the
consequences.

Also, the wiring insulation (and many other substances) gave off toxic
gas when burned. That's what killed the astronauts; they were not
burned by the fire.

When you have electrical shorts in an environment full of flammable
material that give off toxic gas where the only exit takes 2 minutes to
open, it doesn't take 100% oxygen to kill people.

Was the 100% oxygen a contributing factor? Sure, there's no doubt.
Would it have happened without that? There's a very good chance;
hopefully we'll never find out.

>Thus my assertion that the deaths of those astronauts can't really be
>blamed on the "rush", but more on what you'd think someone would have
>figured out sooner was a pretty dumb idea....

If they'd stopped to think about it, they'd have changed it. They
didn't stop; they had a deadline to meet.

>Consider that it probably occured to someone long before in the design
>stage that a fire in the capsule was possible (was any sort of
>fire-supression system included, or even a little hand-held
>extinguisher?), and the very idea of providing a pure-oxygen atmosphere
>should have set of someone's alarm bells.

IIRC (I don't remember for sure), they did not have any kind of fire
supression system or even an extinguisher, at least not up through
Apollo I. I know they do have fire extinguishers on the Shuttle now;
the control panels have holes here and there that fit the extinguisher
nozzle.

I suggest you read some of the accounts; they were in such a hurry, they
really didn't stop to consider crew safety much at all (except in the
big "put a man on the moon and bring him safely home" sense).
--
Chris Adams <cmadams@xxxxxxxxxx>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

.