Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:

spills of hydrocarbon fuels do not need to be
mopped up and leeched out of the ground prior to the contamination
reached groundwater.

Odd how most airports have little trouble with this, thanks to making
modest efforts to avoid spills and contain the ones they do get.

It happens very rarely at a well run airport, it happens never with well run
handling of solid fuel.

The company I work for, and for the next few weeks anyway, has had a
major operation in effect for a decade or so to leech trichloroethane
(or ethylene, I forget) out of the soil. This has been quite expensive
and expansive. What was thuis horrible substance and how did it get in
the ground? It was a solvent used to clean things, and was occaisionally
spilled by workers. We didn't ahve a big tank truck of the stuff tip
over and spill... just a few decades of guys occaisionally tossing a cup
of the stuff out onto the asphalt (which was the original procedure for
disposal).


So... if you think the EPA and OSHA are going to pass up the opportunity
to make life a living hell for a brand-new industry that occasionally
spills stuff...


Replacing a
hydrid fuel grain could be, if designed right, the job
of two guys and ten minutes, using tools available at any Home Depot.

I don't recall Home Depot selling forklifts, although perhaps I haven't
looked in the right area. These grains won't be lightweight.

It is a turn of phrase - forklifts are so easy to buy thay might as well be
in your local Home Depot. Infact I would not be suprise if some Home Depots
in the states do sell them even if not here in Canada.

Regardless of whether or not one can buy a forklift down the block at
Forks R Us, or has to special order from the Ministry Of Forklifts, the
simple fact is... if you are dealign with large and heavy things lift
aircraft and spacecraft, and need forklifts or cranes for maintenance...
you're going to need forklifts or cranes.

So... replacing a hybrid grain of a few tons weight might require a
crane, but you'd be well advised to ahve one anyway for other
maintenance purposes. What other value would a kerosene or, worse yet,
liquid hydrogen storage tank have?


Only an idiot would not have prewrapped the fuel slug in a non-combustable
wrapper

Technical term: cartrige loading. Done all the time.



Depends on the oxidizer - if Nitrous Oxide theft is your real problem,
Hydrogen Peroxide how clean everything and I mean everything is, LOX while
clean is important so is the cooling/insulation systems. What commerical
oxidizer did I miss?

At the present time, that's about it. There is, in fact, very little
chance of any oxidizers other than those being used for a tourist
rocket; while FLOX would certain jack up the performance, it jsut ain't
gonna happen. Nitrogen tet and nitric acid are useful oxidizers, but
they stand no chance of being used around civvies. Hydrous ADN, HAP, HAN
and the like seem very unlikely for this sort of thing.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
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