Building rockets in real life

[KSPNewbie]

Hey, 

I wnated to see if there's any totally devout space fans like me that have tried to make liquid fueled rockets in real life.

My design is still only on paper but it involves 

-Dinitrogen Textroxide 

-and Hydrazine Hydrate

are these legal in Canada? 

If you guys have plans thjat have gone further than mine let me know!

[KSK]

Not personally, although anyone that does certainly gets my respect!

@ap0r started a thread about his engine a while back - that might be worth a look? 

[Nibb31]

4 hours ago, KSPNewbie said:

Hey, 

I wnated to see if there's any totally devout space fans like me that have tried to make liquid fueled rockets in real life.

My design is still only on paper but it involves 

-Dinitrogen Textroxide 

-and Hydrazine Hydrate

are these legal in Canada? 

If you guys have plans thjat have gone further than mine let me know!

Hydrazine and NTO are very nasty substances. I doubt that any hypergolic propellants are legal or safe to use as a hobbyist. This is what hypergolic fueling operations look like in real-life:

Those hazmat suits aren't for cool looks. Trust me, you don't want to be handling this stuff in your garage.

Edited May 29, 2016 by Nibb31

[KSPNewbie]

7 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Hydrazine and NTO are very nasty substances. I doubt that any hypergolic propellants are legal or safe to use as a hobbyist. This is what hypergolic fueling operations look like in real-life:

Those hazmat suits aren't for cool looks. Trust me, you don't want to be handling this stuff in your garage.

I understand the dangers of hypergolic bipropellants and I do have a older hazmat suit from a relative that worked in a mine. Both the NTO and Hydrazine are being used on very small scales as i intend for this to be as large as a slim pop can. I'm not saying it's an excuse but I'm saying it lowers the risk, I really don't want to make liquid oxygen again , (such a boring process in my mind) and i don't know what I could use as a second propellant so I think these two are my best bet, but are they legal?

 

[Kryten]

Safe exposure limit for hydrazine is 0.01ppm, hence the contained bunny suits. I can guarantee a military hazmat suit will not be able to provide adequate protection. 

[KSPNewbie]

 

1 minute ago, Kryten said:

Safe exposure limit for hydrazine is 0.01ppm, hence the contained bunny suits. I can guarantee a military hazmat suit will not be able to provide adequate protection. 

It is not a millitary grade suit- It's mining radioactive materials grade.

[Kryten]

If it's not based on external air supply it will not help you. Something like that is mostly going to be set up for dust, not volatiles like hydrazine.

[ap0r]

Hello @KSPNewbie and thanks for the mention @KSK

Now for your plan. Believe me when I say I'm not a person prone to theatrics or exxageration, but I simply cannot find words strong enough to stress how big of a bad idea using hypergolics is. Really, I'll use caps and a big font to get the point across. This stuff is

R E A L L Y , R E A L L Y   N A S T Y

Yes, as mentioned I'm designing a liquid-fueled rocket engine. One of the first choices was propellant, and in fact I did consider hypergolics, just like you. While I did not post the pros and cons of each fuel combination, I have it on hand. Let me paste here

Hydrazine/NTO:
Pros:

• Ignites on contact, reliable and simple ignition
• Storable for long periods of time
• Non-cryogenic

Cons:

• Corrosive. (It eats through stuff)
• Toxic. Like, DEADLY toxic.
• Carcinogenic (It makes you get cancer)
• Ignites on contact (safety)
• Really hard to find (Really, I had to write to CONAE and they told me they imported it directly from the manufacturer) - this point may be moot outside of Argentina
• Can only be bought in bulk (this point valid only in Argentina, I think)
• Extremely expensive. This is just a supposition, after all I was unable to get a quote.
• Real life rocket scientist are trying to their best to find a replacement for it. That's how bad it is.
• This for Hydrazine:

  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

  Symptoms of acute (short-term) exposure to high levels of hydrazine may include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, dizziness, headache, nausea, pulmonary edema, seizures, coma in humans. Acute exposure can also damage the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. The liquid is corrosive and may produce dermatitis from skin contact in humans and animals. Effects to the lungs, liver, spleen, and thyroid have been reported in animals chronically exposed to hydrazine via inhalation. Increased incidences of lung, nasal cavity, and liver tumors have been observed in rodents exposed to hydrazine.^[40]

  Limit tests for hydrazine in pharmaceuticals suggest that it should be in the low ppm range.^[41] Hydrazine may also cause steatosis.^[42] At least one human is known to have died after 6 months of sublethal exposure to hydrazine hydrate.^[43]
   

• And this for NTO:

EXPOSURE		AVOID ALL CONTACT!	IN ALL CASES CONSULT A DOCTOR!
Inhalation	Cough. Sore throat. Shortness of breath. Dizziness. Headache. Burning sensation. Laboured breathing. Nausea. Symptoms may be delayed. See Notes.	Use breathing protection, closed system or ventilation.	Fresh air, rest. Half-upright position. Administration of oxygen may be needed. Refer immediately for medical attention.
Skin	Redness. Burning sensation. Pain. Serious skin burns.	Protective gloves. Protective clothing.	First rinse with plenty of water for at least 15 minutes, then remove contaminated clothes and rinse again. Refer immediately for medical attention.
Eyes	Redness. Pain. Severe burns.	Wear safety goggles or eye protection in combination with breathing protection.	Rinse with plenty of water for several minutes (remove contact lenses if easily possible). Refer immediately for medical attention.
Ingestion	Burns in mouth and throat.	Do not eat, drink, or smoke during work.	Rinse mouth. Do NOT induce vomiting. Refer immediately for medical attention.

Basically, and to reiterate, this is a bad idea from your personal safety and budget viewpoint.

I strongly suggest considering alternate propellants. Your propellant choice should be tought out, and not be "something cool you heard about", but "something that does what you need it to do, in the most safe way possible, and with minimal expense"

Sorry for the wall of text but this is paramount to your safety, and also if you're involved in an incident/accident the media will cast bad light on all hobby rocketeers indiscriminately as it has happened in the past.

If you need any advice, feel free to write me. Mind, I'm not an expert by any means, but I have devoted some time to study these matters, and much time to thinking about it.

PS: I reccomend you get these books:

• Design of Liquid Propellant Fuelled Engines
• Designing, Building and Testing Small Liquid fuel rocket engines
• Ignition A History of Rocket Propellants  <- Especially this one, it'll really open your eyes about hypergolics.
• Sutton-Biblarz-Rocket_Propulsion_Elements

Once again sorry for this lengthy post but I wanted to get the point across really clearly.

[Steel]

2 hours ago, KSPNewbie said:

I understand the dangers of hypergolic bipropellants and I do have a older hazmat suit from a relative that worked in a mine. Both the NTO and Hydrazine are being used on very small scales as i intend for this to be as large as a slim pop can. I'm not saying it's an excuse but I'm saying it lowers the risk, I really don't want to make liquid oxygen again , (such a boring process in my mind) and i don't know what I could use as a second propellant so I think these two are my best bet, but are they legal?

 

You may have a hazmat suit, but do you have an isolated clean room with filtered air supply to stop any escaping into the wider environment, and to also a way to ensure that there is no residue left on any surfaces that you might come into contact with after removing said suit?

 

I can't tell you whether they are legal but having had a look around, I would imagine you would need to get permission for their use and demonstrate that there is only a very small chance of leakage into the environment, as they do pose a safety risk to the wider public if not used with extreme caution.

Edited May 29, 2016 by Steel

[lobe]

I would try other hypergolic propellants. The UK used high test peroxide and kerosene for their Black Arrow rocket (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow),  and that was hypergolic. Though most things stuck in the stream of a jet of decomposed and very hot high test peroxide would be hypergolic. This is about the safest route.

If you want to be a little more adventurous, you could use red fuming nitric acid (RFNA) and a choice of turpentine or furfuryl alcohol. I would congratulate you when you manage to get that amount of RFNA though, you would be braver than I could ever be. 

 

[PB666]

Theres lots of things on the market that are really dangerous that you can buy. Doesn't account for sense or safety, I once ordered a can of hydrogen flouride, and UPS lost it somewhere. But don't let someone elses fololishness be a judge of what is sensible, if you are going to work with with volatile and explosive chemicals you need the properly rated facility. Should you find yourself in trouble with your suit, you can back a few steps away and you are in clean air. Ive worked with organic chemistry for more than 30 years, if you expose skin or eyes to extremely caustic substances you have less than 5 seconds to get it off before it begins to do serious damage. 

You should at least be working in a fume container which is exhaust ventilated and  with 100 fpm face velocity. About 0.5 m/s. The backside of the device (outflow stream) should have a carbon filtered to protect you neighbors and a wet zeolite matrix to neutralize any nitrogenous compounds. In addition it is best to ventilate vertically from the back of the device because the ambient airstream may push the air back into your face, like smoke at a campfire. The outflow should be at least 30 feet above the roof tops around you. Since the danger limit is at 0.01 ppm you should be ventilating at great distance from any neighboring structure. This is particularly true for any heating operation because these tend to create their own local airflow. 

In addition you need to have some sort of safety shower that has a neutralizer in it, and an eyewash station. These can be rigged from househould devices.

There is a saying, the safety concern that you pay less attention to is usually the one that gets you. People pay alot of attention to radioactivity, alot of chemicals go through you skin and gloves like they are not even there, many thousands of times more dangerous. Their was a guy in our group who got a tiny microdrop of triflouroacetic acid on his skin, he did not notice for a few minutes, it left an open sore for about six months before it began to scab over and became a permanent scar, about 100 times the diameter of the original droplet. 

The first thing is to make sure the suits airsupply is reliable, isolated, and prefiltered, a filter that binds and/or neutralizes the hazard completely in one pass.  A crude test on the suits hood is to nebulize saccharin around the  outside of the hood with the airsupply briefly shut off and to see if you smell sweetness, you must have a nebulizer to do this or it wont work. Old perfume bottles are nebulizers, if you can find one, you have to test to confirm that it is nebulizing properly, the water droplets are so small you cannot visibly see them.  Once the airsupply is on try the nebulizer close to the air supply. The suit should also have an airflow meter that is readable. You can also nebulize the gloves and any other weakspots to see it they sweetened once the suit is removed. 

One way to more thoroughly test your equipment while keeping the suit on after the saccrahin test is confirmed  is to take a food processor and some habernero peppers, with (your suit still on) chop them up  in the cabinet and boil them just inside the face of your containment cabinet with you standing as if you were working, If you end up coughing  (it can be very very intense so be prepared get away and remove the hood and go some place with clean air, lick your wounds and throw the suit away) your finished, stop, dont use the suit. Once you finished boiling for 5 minutes allow the pepper extract to cool with ice to ambient, add some clorox and dispose of (Altenative freeze and you can spice your food with it for about a year) clean thoroughly your gloves and wipe the parts you need to touch to remove the suit with dilute bleach and remove you helmet and suit, if you touch the eyelids or nose hole with your fingers or any part of the body and you feel burning, means your gloves are not sealed. Be very careful where you touch, because if you hsnds are contiminated even hours later you will burn, the only way i know how tonremove the oils is with a bleach based soap. Common  sense if you are sensitive to green peppers do not do.

A little bit of field science, when you stand at the face of a containment cabinet, your body disrupts the laminar flow of air, causing fumes inside the cabinet to be drawn toward your face, while most blow away. So its best to keep most of the work toward the back of the cabinet, its not as bad as working in the open because your body heat draws fumes toward your face, but its not perfect and gases from chemicals in the cabinet can sublimate on your suit and you might touch them while or after you exit the suit, so you also need a suit decontamination protocol. Note if you dont trust the suit enough to boil chili peppers in front of it, you should not test it with hydrazines, the oil in peppers tells the heat receptor your skin is burned,mit dies not actually burn, hydrazine does. 

In addition, if the suit is ventilated, make sure the ventilation system is redundant and prefiltered,myou dont want to be in a isolation suit and suddenly realize you are sharing it with the hazard that just managed to creep its way into you airsupply. 

i know alot about organic chemistry and have worked with some pretty bad stuff (DFP gives absolutley no symptoms except dilated pupils before you drop), in fact, another the most dangerous substance known to man at its highest concentration. Even if someone gave me the equipment and the suit and i had done all the above and confirmed it worked, I would not work with the hydrazine by myself in my garage, and I have a pretty high tech garage and have done some pretty crazy things in my garage. You are not only putting yourself at risk but people and property in your vicinity. Working with hazards is just that, its work,  allow someone to train you, build the faculity, buy you the equipment, and get your jollies while getting paid. Apply at SpaceX, they will prolly have a need for a hydrazine technician at some point in the future. Seriuosly, if you want to make a rocket,  find a group of serious rocket hobbiest with qualified engineers and join. 

 

 

 

[KSPNewbie]

2 hours ago, ap0r said:

Hello @KSPNewbie and thanks for the mention @KSK

Now for your plan. Believe me when I say I'm not a person prone to theatrics or exxageration, but I simply cannot find words strong enough to stress how big of a bad idea using hypergolics is. Really, I'll use caps and a big font to get the point across. This stuff is

R E A L L Y , R E A L L Y   N A S T Y

Yes, as mentioned I'm designing a liquid-fueled rocket engine. One of the first choices was propellant, and in fact I did consider hypergolics, just like you. While I did not post the pros and cons of each fuel combination, I have it on hand. Let me paste here

Hydrazine/NTO:
Pros:

• Ignites on contact, reliable and simple ignition
• Storable for long periods of time
• Non-cryogenic

Cons:

• Corrosive. (It eats through stuff)
• Toxic. Like, DEADLY toxic.
• Carcinogenic (It makes you get cancer)
• Ignites on contact (safety)
• Really hard to find (Really, I had to write to CONAE and they told me they imported it directly from the manufacturer) - this point may be moot outside of Argentina
• Can only be bought in bulk (this point valid only in Argentina, I think)
• Extremely expensive. This is just a supposition, after all I was unable to get a quote.
• Real life rocket scientist are trying to their best to find a replacement for it. That's how bad it is.
• This for Hydrazine:

  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

  Symptoms of acute (short-term) exposure to high levels of hydrazine may include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, dizziness, headache, nausea, pulmonary edema, seizures, coma in humans. Acute exposure can also damage the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. The liquid is corrosive and may produce dermatitis from skin contact in humans and animals. Effects to the lungs, liver, spleen, and thyroid have been reported in animals chronically exposed to hydrazine via inhalation. Increased incidences of lung, nasal cavity, and liver tumors have been observed in rodents exposed to hydrazine.^[40]

  Limit tests for hydrazine in pharmaceuticals suggest that it should be in the low ppm range.^[41] Hydrazine may also cause steatosis.^[42] At least one human is known to have died after 6 months of sublethal exposure to hydrazine hydrate.^[43]
   

• And this for NTO:

EXPOSURE		AVOID ALL CONTACT!	IN ALL CASES CONSULT A DOCTOR!
Inhalation	Cough. Sore throat. Shortness of breath. Dizziness. Headache. Burning sensation. Laboured breathing. Nausea. Symptoms may be delayed. See Notes.	Use breathing protection, closed system or ventilation.	Fresh air, rest. Half-upright position. Administration of oxygen may be needed. Refer immediately for medical attention.
Skin	Redness. Burning sensation. Pain. Serious skin burns.	Protective gloves. Protective clothing.	First rinse with plenty of water for at least 15 minutes, then remove contaminated clothes and rinse again. Refer immediately for medical attention.
Eyes	Redness. Pain. Severe burns.	Wear safety goggles or eye protection in combination with breathing protection.	Rinse with plenty of water for several minutes (remove contact lenses if easily possible). Refer immediately for medical attention.
Ingestion	Burns in mouth and throat.	Do not eat, drink, or smoke during work.	Rinse mouth. Do NOT induce vomiting. Refer immediately for medical attention.

Basically, and to reiterate, this is a bad idea from your personal safety and budget viewpoint.

I strongly suggest considering alternate propellants. Your propellant choice should be tought out, and not be "something cool you heard about", but "something that does what you need it to do, in the most safe way possible, and with minimal expense"

Sorry for the wall of text but this is paramount to your safety, and also if you're involved in an incident/accident the media will cast bad light on all hobby rocketeers indiscriminately as it has happened in the past.

If you need any advice, feel free to write me. Mind, I'm not an expert by any means, but I have devoted some time to study these matters, and much time to thinking about it.

PS: I reccomend you get these books:

• Design of Liquid Propellant Fuelled Engines
• Designing, Building and Testing Small Liquid fuel rocket engines
• Ignition A History of Rocket Propellants  <- Especially this one, it'll really open your eyes about hypergolics.
• Sutton-Biblarz-Rocket_Propulsion_Elements

Once again sorry for this lengthy post but I wanted to get the point across really clearly.

I've done extensive research regarding it and (not to brag, but) I knew everything you listed on the post, if it comes down to it I'll just have to make more liquid oxygen. I could probably use alcohol as a fuel. I can make hydrazine much easier  than liquid oxygen in my chemlab. I have all the stuff listed on posts claiming what I need at I've worked with a fellow chemist to make NTO once before, it was for his university class.

[PB666]

33 minutes ago, KSPNewbie said:

I've done extensive research regarding it and (not to brag, but) I knew everything you listed on the post, if it comes down to it I'll just have to make more liquid oxygen. I could probably use alcohol as a fuel. I can make hydrazine much easier  than liquid oxygen in my chemlab. I have all the stuff listed on posts claiming what I need at I've worked with a fellow chemist to make NTO once before, it was for his university class.

Famous last words . . . . . in his chemistry class.... Aside from that Hyperglolics have rediculous ISPs. 

[cantab]

As mentioned, ap0r is designing and building a liquid rocket engine and posting about it here. And I agree with him. Make your life easier and use a propellant combination that's safe. OK, nothing's totally safe, but something that isn't going to kill you in a small quantity!

[ap0r]

Of course you can make hydrazine more easily. That is not the point, wich sadly, you seem to be missing entirely. If you want to proceed with this dangerous chemical against all advice, on your head be it.

[Ravenchant]

I second the Kerosene/H2O2 combination. Peroxide is just volatile enough to be interesting to work with and its specific impulse with kerosene isn't *that* horrible compared to most hypergolics at somewhere around 280-290s.

[PB666]

48 minutes ago, Ravenchant said:

I second the Kerosene/H2O2 combination. Peroxide is just volatile enough to be interesting to work with and its specific impulse with kerosene isn't *that* horrible compared to most hypergolics at somewhere around 280-290s.

Hydrogen peroxide can be quite explosive, not to be combined with reductants with labile hydride of any kind, even at dilute concentrations in water they can cause quite an explosion. This includes things like Alkylsulfides and alkylamines. The heat in these reactions tends to build slowly but goes critical in a fraction of a second.

Whatever happened to using good old fashioned pressurized oxygen, 2500 PSI is not good enough? Its not like you guys are going to build a rocket to the moon. It goes up a few thousand feet then hits the ground you pat yourself of the back and say job well done.

 

[A Fuzzy Velociraptor]

21 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Whatever happened to using good old fashioned pressurized oxygen, 2500 PSI is not good enough? Its not like you guys are going to build a rocket to the moon. It goes up a few thousand feet then hits the ground you pat yourself of the back and say job well done.

 

Generally you require special piping and gauges with gaseous oxygen.

Honestly hydrogen peroxide is not particularly easy to get your hands on and the catalysts required can be fairly expensive (though I don't know prices of permanginate solutions or catalyse) and while it is safer than many other propellants it can still do serious damage. Honestly I think your easiest bet would be to just use Nitrous Oxide and Propane. They're both relatively safe, easy to acquire, and won't require any particular special equipment for their use.

[KSPNewbie]

4 hours ago, ap0r said:

Of course you can make hydrazine more easily. That is not the point, wich sadly, you seem to be missing entirely. If you want to proceed with this dangerous chemical against all advice, on your head be it.

I'm re-working the design to include safer propellants, it may take me longer but it took them years to perfect the Saturn V when I said it was easier to produce I was not saying I would produce it, I've been looking at media and have concluded the idea was foolish, thank you for forewarning me, do you have any oxidizer/fuels that would be efficient and easy to produce

[kerbiloid]

 

Quote

...The Alchemists' Guild is known more for its failures than its successes. That is to say, more people (in fact, everybody in the city) are aware of the explosions produced by the guild's members rather than the actual products and services they render. The guild building is blown up a few times a month, and is therefore under a perpetual state of repair.
...Many Alchemists, or maybe apprentices in the guild, are likely to be former members rather than current members, because they tend to die of explosions or from drinking whatever chemicals they had mixed together.

http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Alchemists%27_Guild

 

22 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

This is what hypergolic fueling operations look like in real-life:

Used since early 1940s: Me.163's fuel component.

Edited May 30, 2016 by kerbiloid

[ap0r]

2 hours ago, KSPNewbie said:

I'm re-working the design to include safer propellants, it may take me longer but it took them years to perfect the Saturn V when I said it was easier to produce I was not saying I would produce it, I've been looking at media and have concluded the idea was foolish, thank you for forewarning me, do you have any oxidizer/fuels that would be efficient and easy to produce

Yes, ethanol, methanol, gasoline, or kerosene as fuel, and gaseous oxygen, liquid oxygen, or nitrous oxide as oxidizer.

They are all relatively safe, easy and cheap to obtain, and you can extract decent performance from them. 

I chose Methanol/GOX for my engine due to lower temps and pressures that greatly simplify both chamber and nozzle structural design, and reduce the magnitude of the cooling problem.

[11of10]

Good luck, and Keep It Simple!

[Ravenchant]

@PB666 @A Fuzzy Velociraptor Peroxide is not easy to handle from an objective point of view, but I suggested it because it was the first thing to come to mind and it's next to harmless in comparison with hydrazine mixtures and NTO. As for catalysts, Black Arrow got by with a silver plated nickel wire mesh for a 85% concentration.

 

Laughing gas/propane would be a much better choice, as you said, and easier to acquire.

[kerbiloid]

15 minutes ago, Ravenchant said:

Laughing gas/propane

As a propane cylinder based rocket hardly could fly out from the lower atmosphere, .laughing gas is unnecessary,
Propane cylinders are sometimes flying themselves, thanks to IntakeAir.

[PB666]

7 hours ago, A Fuzzy Velociraptor said:

Generally you require special piping and gauges with gaseous oxygen.

Honestly hydrogen peroxide is not particularly easy to get your hands on and the catalysts required can be fairly expensive (though I don't know prices of permanginate solutions or catalyse) and while it is safer than many other propellants it can still do serious damage. Honestly I think your easiest bet would be to just use Nitrous Oxide and Propane. They're both relatively safe, easy to acquire, and won't require any particular special equipment for their use.

I have a bottle of kMnO4 in my garage. Unlike hydrogen peroxide permangate is pH sensitive, so if you can keep the pH up until reaction time you canbrelatively deaden its reaction. I used to make batteries of the using sea water for quality testing.