Comment on X-37B plane can stay in space for years, power source?Comments−dalke11yThat's chemical protective gear designed to protect the ground crew against hydrazine or similarly hazardous vapors .They were first developed in the 1960s for the Titan missiles, which use the chemically nasty (but room temperature) nitrogen tetroxide and Aerozine 50. See http://books.google.com/books?id=MdTZFu1fZ4AC&pg=PA186&lpg=P... for some of the history.Here you can see the suits in use at the end of the Space Shuttle STS-1 mission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gYc... along with explanation by both the news and NASA commentators.http://www.xcor.com/blog/category/thrusters/ and http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering/Clean_Sp... are pictures of people in similar suits, in order to fuel spacecraft. I picked those to give commentary about how hazardous hydrazine is, and that there's a push to use alternative fuels.
Comments
That's chemical protective gear designed to protect the ground crew against hydrazine or similarly hazardous vapors .
They were first developed in the 1960s for the Titan missiles, which use the chemically nasty (but room temperature) nitrogen tetroxide and Aerozine 50. See http://books.google.com/books?id=MdTZFu1fZ4AC&pg=PA186&lpg=P... for some of the history.
Here you can see the suits in use at the end of the Space Shuttle STS-1 mission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gYc... along with explanation by both the news and NASA commentators.
http://www.xcor.com/blog/category/thrusters/ and http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering/Clean_Sp... are pictures of people in similar suits, in order to fuel spacecraft. I picked those to give commentary about how hazardous hydrazine is, and that there's a push to use alternative fuels.