Jan 13 2003
From The Space Library
NASA announced that a two-year collaboration between researchers at Stanford University and NASA's ARC had resulted in a successful test of an alternative paraffin-based rocket fuel intended to increase operational safety, reduce costs as compared to solid fuels, and, eventually, to provide the fuel in Space Shuttle booster rockets. The researchers had developed a nontoxic, easily handled fuel, producing as by-products carbon dioxide and water, rather than the aluminum oxide and acidic gases that conventional rocket fuel produces. Arif Karabeyoglu had led Stanford University's contribution to the fuel research, developing the theory of a fast-burning, low-cost, paraffin-based fuel in his doctoral thesis, which Stanford and NASA had partially funded. The testing series had begun on 24 September 2001 at ARC's Hybrid Combustion Facility, a heavy-duty test chamber capable of accommodating pressures of up to 60 atmospheres. The first phase of the testing program had consisted of approximately 40 runs. (NASA, “NASA Tests Environmentally Friendly Rocket Fuel,” news release 03-010, 13 January 2003, ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2003/03-010.txt (accessed 9 July 2008).
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