How deadly is rocket fuel? Just watch the video of the PEPCON Explosion in 1988.
The plant manufactured Ammonium Perchlorate, which is an oxidizer used in the production of solid rocket fuel, the plant was one of two in the US that manufactured it for both NASA and the military (used in fuel for ballistic missiles).
Highly toxic and volatile.
Now it’s an industrial park and apartments just to the south, I drive right by there quite a bit on the 215, can’t imagine the ground isn’t saturated with chemicals out there. Everything thing you see there, as far as you can see, is all built up now
Depends upon the rocket. Some are liquid fueled. Some are solid fueled. Either type is extremely volatile to provide the amount of thrust required to move whatever size rocket is being fired for flight, be it a rocket propelled grenade or a spacecraft.
Rocket Propellant 1 (RP-1) is a highly refined form or Kerosene. It is very stable, and relatively non-toxic. Most everything else used, propellant and oxidizer, is extremely dangerous, reactive, cryogenic, toxic, or some combination of these.
Besides the already mentioned Ammonium Perchlorate, they can include:
Various forms of Hydrazine, usually UDMH or MMH.
Nitrogen Tetroxide.
Hydrogen Peroxide.
Other Ammonium compounds, including Ammonium Dinitramide and Ammonium Nitrate.
Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen.
Besides the fuels and oxidizers themselves, the combustion products, exhaust, smoke, etc., are also usually very toxic.
Fuel handlers, both military and NASA, wore special suits when working with fuels or around rockets/spacecraft.
Ken
For those of us (like me!) who are interested in modeling a NASA M113 in 1/35, there will shortly be another option for the decals. If you attend the IPMS National Convention in early August, the convention decal that is given to everyone who registers will contain the markings for the four white NASA M113s in 1993 and the markings for the lime/yellow #1 M113 in the late 1990s. The decals are being printed by Cartograf so should be good quality. After the convention, any remaining decals are usual sold but I am not sure which vendor will be handling the after shows sales this year.
Have fun modeling!
OK, I went thru my old photos and scanned what I have of the XHRV-1.
From Wikipedia:
NASA XHRV-1 experimental hazardous material response vehicle
Between 1994 and 1997, NASA (who operated four M113A2 Armored Rescue Vehicles up to the end of the Space Shuttle program) trialled the eXperimental HAZMAT Response Vehicle (XHRV-1), a modified M577A3 specifically designed for dealing with HAZMAT incidents i.e. emergency incidents involving hazardous materials. The vehicle, on loan from FMC, was a collaboration between NASA and the Ames Research Center, and featured an extended 6-axle chassis similar to that of the M577A2E2, as well as external fuel tanks similar to those fitted to the M113A3.(M577 Command Post Carrier - Wikipedia)
At the front was a manipulator arm for use with the hazardous materials. The driver’s hatch was replaced with a transparent polycarbonate dome, and the vehicle was hermetically sealed and fitted with an overpressure air conditioning system. The APU, normally attached to the front of the upper hull to the right of the driver, was removed. At the rear the cargo ramp was replaced with two sealed “suit ports”, attached to each was a HAZMAT suit so that personnel could enter and exit the vehicle without being exposed to the hazardous materials. In addition to the vehicle’s driver and commander, the rear cargo/personnel area was fitted with seating and workstations for four operators. On the roof of the upper hull was a “robotic miniature helicopter” (i.e. a drone) fitted with stereoscopic cameras and environmental sensors, which was remotely controlled from inside the vehicle. In conceptual artwork the roof featured another transparent polycarbonate dome to provide external visual access to the operators, but this was not implemented on the actual vehicle.(M577 Command Post Carrier - Wikipedia)(M577 Command Post Carrier - Wikipedia)
Only one prototype vehicle was built and is now on public display (repainted as a military ambulance) at Eagle Field in California.
I also found this article:
NASA/AMES/FMC HAZMAT Response M577A3 (XHRV-1) - Tank Encyclopedia (tanks-encyclopedia.com)
I don’t know why it was dropped, it was a great concept.
@V2Phantom Interesting about the IPMS decals, back in the May/June 1996 IPMS Journal they had an article about the NASA M113s.
Ken
Hi Ken! Thanks for posting the photos and background info on the XHRV-1. After seeing your great photos, I am almost tempted to scratch build this prototype. This is one cool looking vehicle.
The IPMS article you mentioned is really good. I had used it as one of my references when doing the background research for the IPMS convention decal sheet. Here’s M113 #3 in the white scheme that is my favorite on the sheet:
A friend of mine who was on the KSC emergency response team assigned to a M113 shot a few photos for me in 1993 so I had decent reference photos. M113 #3 in either the white or the yellow/green scheme was the only M113 that had the shuttle mission patches on it. This was the one used by the astronauts for both training and emergency escape on launch day. M113 # 1,2 and 4 (when available) were used by the emergency response team and had minimum markings with no shuttle mission patches.
Mike
Then there was the two part rocket fuel for the Me-163B Komet, which was both extremely caustic and highly unstable….
Just cause it dissolved some pilots and ground crewmen! Oh, and had a habit of exploding on rough landings? No reason to get upset.
Ken
Kind of gives a different perspective when looking at the X-1 program at that time. USAAF ETO postwar pilot vets heard of those things thru the rumor mill.
OK, as long as we are discussing NASA and space stuff, here is something interesting I found on Facebook. You have to read to the end for the NASA stuff.
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Well, because that’s the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that’s the gauge they used. So, why did ‘they’ use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England . You see, that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder ‘What horse’s as came up with this?’, you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses’ ases.)  Now, the twist to the story: When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s as. And you thought being a horse’s as wasn’t important? Ancient horse’s as*es control almost everything. 
Ken
The funniest thing is this is mostly true, except the Romans didn’t use chariots for war (or anything else much apart from ceremonies and racing - biaga or quadriga). But if you make something that has to fit a horse between a pair of shafts standard gauge is pretty much the minimum viable wheel spacing, and it has been commented on that the rutting on the thresholds of Roman fort gates does match…
“By examining ruts left by cart and carriage wheels in the stone streets, archaeologists have surmised the Romans had one way streets and no-left-turn intersections. National Geographic writer James Cerruti had always wondered whether Roman carts and carriages drove on the right side of the road or the left side. When he saw grooves in the a section of the ancient Appian Way he realized they drove the same way Italians often do today: straight down the middle.”
Cheers,
M
A club member mentioned those yellow tracks callsign was Hardtop 1-4.
