Soyuz blows up (video)

[Ecthy]

Blair Soyuz Project?

[DanS]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Probably more like 1/3

10 kt is a slight overestimate, I think

It shouldn't really be surprising; at launch, the Saturn V weighed over 6000 tons, most of which was fuel and oxidizer...

EDIT: actually, you should cut my previous estimates in half. Saturn V weighed ~3000 tons. The heat of combustion of its major fuel component (RP-1, a highly-refined kerosene) is slightly more than 3 times that of TNT. However, RP-1 requires an oxidizer in the ratio 2.25 to 1 or so, giving the Saturn V overall approximately the same chemical energy density as TNT. So call it 3 kt TNT equivalent = 1/6 of Hiroshima. Lethality range scales as something like E^1/2, meaning that you would probably have survived a Saturn V crash-and-burn from half a mile. You wouldn't have been very happy though. 1st-2nd degree burns over every exposed surface. Blindness (possibly temporary; depends how quickly you managed to close your eyes)

Interesting. What about the 450 tons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on the second stage?

[Velociryx]

Someone set them up the bomb.

-=Vel=-

[Stuie]

"****ing hell. ****ing hell."

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DanS


Interesting. What about the 450 tons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on the second stage?

The energy contained per unit mass in a H2 + O2 mixture is actually less than that in the RP-1 + O2 mixture

RP-1 heat combustion = 43 MJ/kg
RP-1 oxidizer ratio = 2.25 to 1
RP-1 + oxidizer heat of reaction = 43 / (1 + 2.25) = 13.2 MJ/kg

H2 heat combustion = 112 MJ/kg
H2 oxidizer ratio = 8 to 1 (2 H2 + O2 = 2 H2O, molar mass H2 = 2, molar mass O2 = 32)
H2 + oxidizer heat of reaction = 112 / (1 + 8) = 12.4 MJ/kg

H2, however, has a better specific impulse (because its combustion product is H2O, while RP-1 combusts to form both H2O and CO2. CO2 is heavier than H2O, which is a bad thing in rocketry).

In other words, the fact that 450 tons of the Saturn V is H2 + oxidizer actually diminishes the initial approximation of the energy (based on the idea that its weight is entirely RP-1 + oxidizer). The change is miniscule, however. Order of 1%

[KrazyHorse]

The heat of combustion of TNT, for comparison purposes, is 15 MJ/kg

[KrazyHorse]

Damnit, just looked it up. My memory was wrong on heat of combustion of H2. 142 MJ/kg means that the specific heat of reaction of the H2 + oxidizer mixture is actually slightly higher than that of RP-1 + oxidizer. 15.8 MJ/kg or so

Again, not that this is going to make much of a difference. One sixth change in one sixth of the mass means that the total should be pushed up less than 3%...

[Winston]

.

[Harry Tuttle]

Wooooh! Look at that baby go!

Woooh, I can't see the exhaust anymore, it must be gone!

Wooh, oops, there it is again...

Say, that looks like it's coming down...

Oh ****! Oh ****!


HAHAHAHAHAA.

Well at least no one was under it.

[KrazyHorse]

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0210/15fotonm1/

Russian news agencies say that at least one person -- draftee Ivan Marchenko -- was killed at the launch site when the disastrous event transpired. Eight more people suffered injuries and six were hospitalized, the Interfax news agency reported.

[Harry Tuttle]

Well that just killed the joke.

[KrazyHorse]

The abort button should have been hit. They had more than enough time to detonate the rocket above the ground once their telemetry told them that the engines had cut out.

[DanS]

Could you please define "range of lethality"? Thanks.

[KrazyHorse]

Fuzzy concept. Distance at which an unprotected human being would stand a significant chance of dying from the blast in the open.

Half a mile from a 3 kt non-radioactive blast would probably give you somewhere between a 90 and 99% chance of survival. That's also about the range that you expect severe damage to a standard wood-frame house (all glass shattered, significant structural damage)

[KrazyHorse]

1 mile from non-radioactive 3 kt blast and the only really severe injuries would be visual and those caused by flying glass. A wood-frame house would sustain appreciable damage, but would certainly not collapse