Slashdot Mirror
New Reports on Health Risks of Rocket Fuel
An anonymous reader writes "A new study revealed in the journal Nature says children are being made sick by rocket fuel near the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Russia's main launch site. Space.com has a story about it that also tells of a new National Research Council report about rocket fuel contamination in the United States. It's in drinking water, bottled water, milk and even on lettuce. The Environmental Working Group has long fought for tougher standards on how much rocket fuel (actually, its main component, perchlorate) we ought to drink. Environmental Working Group has a response to the NRC report, and one of their officials is quoted in the Space.com story as saying the EPA will likely set tighter standards after considering the risk to infants. Bottom line: Rocket fuel probably isn't too good for us."
Yes. It's extremely common as a solid fuel in rockets such as the Titans, Deltas, Space Shuttle, etc. Also, it powers military missles, amateur rockets, sounding rockets, and just about any other type of solid rocket.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
The EPA is in the news today for saying that the perchlorate limts on drinking water should be raised twenty times, rather than lowered. That is, they are saying it is not as dangerous as previously thought.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
Then you get what you deserve, I'd say. Somehow I greatly doubt that Tillamock Cheese and North Plains Lettuce purchased in Beaverton at the farmer's market are contaminated.
That's a pretty insensitive and ignorant comment. You might be surprised to learn how prevalent perchlorate contamination is in the United States. Drinking and irrigation water for up to 20 million Americans in 14 different states are contaminated with it. But then again, I guess those 20 million people get what they deserve? And yes, even our lettuce is affected.
Anyway, regardless of whether you were trolling or not, some information for other people who might be interested. Southern California has a rather large problem with perchlorate contamination in our water supplies. This wasn't discovered until around 1997 when the EPA and local water municipalities decided to start testing for it. They were quite surprised as to the extent of this "plume".
Evidentially, contractors and other workers were dumping all their rocket fuel right into the ground. Granted, they were probably unaware of the possible consequences at the time. Anyway, a number of these plumes have been found around former military bases in Southern California (Norton, March, George). In particular, the plume located around Norton/San Bernardino is a huge problem and cleaning it up is astronomically expensive
Other links:
A Perchlorate Primer
Map of contaminated sites in the United States
Study says low amounts of Perchlorate pose NO risk (LA Times - Registration Required. This article was written yesterday. Interesting contrast to this Slashdot article)
Lockheed Martin commissions study. Volunteers take perchlorate pills
Liquid fuel rockets do not use perchlorate. The most common oxidizer is liquid oxygen (LOX), second most common oxidizer is N2O4. One of the selling points of the Delta "Heavy" booster is that the strap-ons are liquid fuel (LH2-LOX) and avoid the environmental problems with solid fuel.
Solid fuel is typically aluminum powder, polybutadene and ammonium perchlorate for the bigger motors. Nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin for some of the smaller motors. Sugar and potassium nitrate for model rockets.
Liquids fuels include gasolene (Goddard), ethanol (V2), kerosene/RP1 (Atlas, Thor, Saturn first stages), Hydrazine (Agena, Titan II, III, IV, Apollo service module and lunar excursion module), Hydrogen (Centaur, Saturn upper stages, Space Shuttle main engines, newest Delta). Oxidizers are LOX and N2O4 - note that N2O4 and Hydrazine are hypergolic (ignites on contact).