In article ,
says...

wrote in message ...

On Sat, 8 Sep 2012 05:23:29 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

However as one cannot isolate one countries astronauts, and given the
ethos
of Russia to even have normal pressure inside their suits, I suspect that
getting any agreement to do more than small scale tinkering might be a
problem.

brian


Brian

Do you remember the Apollo capsule accident that killed three
astronauts? A pure oxygen atmosphere is an invitation to have a deadly
fire or explosion.

Only if you're running it at 17+ psia.

At the pressures Apollo ran at once in orbit, it was a lot less of an issue.

Agreed it was less of an issue during an actual Apollo mission (when
pressure was something like 5 psi), but NASA still chose to move to a
fiarly low pressure O2/N2 mix for Skylab.

That said, I don't think anyone was suggesting running pure O2 at high
pressures.

But running at lower pressures does make emergency EVAs easier.

Agreed.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer