SpaceX Starship’s Explosive Flight
Key ingredient in these tests is in replacing nasty chemicals used as rocket fuel with cheap and ecological methane CH₄. This fuel is an intermediate step before going with carbon-free hydrogen H₂.
This test reminded me of an incident at my favorite inorganic chemistry class in high school:
My teacher showed a tin can with a cut-off bottom and with a tiny/nailed hole at the top. She pumped hydrogen into this tin can, closed the hole at the top with her finger, and then she called a volunteer from the class to conduct an experiment. One guy volunteered, and she asked him to light up the hydrogen at the top hole, when she removed her finger (the can was standing with its open bottom on the table). He did, and for a while it was burning quietly like a candle. But unexpectedly a very loud explosion happened and both the can and the volunteer disappeared. The teacher found the can behind the table — it propelled to the ceiling and landed behind the teacher. Then we saw the volunteer at the very back of the classroom — nobody noticed how he teleported there.
To make a long story short, at about the same time Soviets were testing a cargo plane with hydrogen engines, with a tank of liquid hydrogen on board, and the wings filled with hydrogen gas. In the last test flight the airplane just evaporated, and the bang was heard far away. Progress is slowly going on: from flying on barrels with kerosene, to barrels with methane now, and on barrels with hydrogen in future. And technology tends to repeat itself, but with better materials: not many people remember that third of cars in New York in 1900s were electric.
Actually, Jay Leno has one in his garage:
Check Egyptian Pyramids Start Making Sense story on technologies of ancient Egypt that are actual today.
