For anyone interested in the history of rocket propellants, I highly recommend "Ignition!" by John D. Clark[0]. It has plenty of chemistry if you're into that, but even if you're not (like me) it's an enjoyable read.
Just one of dozens of amazing passages in this book (page 48):
> "... its density was a little better than that of the other acid, and it was magnificently hypergolic with many fuels. (I used to take advantage of this property when somebody came into my lab looking for a job. At an inconspicuous signal, one of my henchmen would drop the finger of an old rubber glove into a flask containing about 100 cc of mixed acid -and then stand back. The rubber would swell and squirm for a moment, and then a magnificent rocket-like jet of flame would rise from the flask, with appropriate hissing noises. I could usually tell from the candidate's demeanor whether he had the sort of nervous system desirable in a propellant chemist.)"
I think it's a bimodal distribution. On the one hand you have the unflappable who just calmly watch what happens. On the other you have the far too flappable who is already out of the lab and making good time out of the building and the state.
I meant what was shown in this movie [0]. In a nutshell, the ability to remain calm when the unexpected happens, to try to solve the problem, or at least to not make it worse.
Ah so this is where the cartoon trope of jets of boiling fluid speeding up from a lab flask came from. I thought artists were exaggerating, but I guess not this time.
There was also a quote about chlorine trifluoride in Ignition!
”It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.”
As a former chemist, I thought this book was a great example of "applied chemistry".
The theoretical aspects are challenging enough. But then you realize just how difficult the practical application of the theory can be. Sure, a mixture of fuming nitric acid and hydrazine will produce enough propulsion, but how do you dump tons of it into an engine without it just exploding?
The section on building high-precision detonation speed timing apparatuses (and occasional explosive deconstruction of same) made me realize how uncomfortably close "information we require" and "catastrophic consequences of collection that information" are in the field.
There are few things that get certain types of chemists and engineers excited like being able to find out - and not being in trouble with ‘the bosses’ if it explodes a few times along the way.
[0] https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...