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Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)

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21–30 of 81 posts

Re: Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)

#21

Ah, the old pop-tart solid rocket booster. Sugar is a good propellant (though you’ll need an oxidiser if you’re going far up). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-propellant_rocket#%22Can...

In Andy Weir's The Martian one of the characters uses a mixture of sugar and liquid oxygen as an IED. Loads of energy in sugar. Glycerin is also quite energy dense. I used to do chemistry demos for high school chem classes and the potassium permanganate and glycerin demo was always a spectacle.

Re: Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)

#23
post #20

Ah, the old pop-tart solid rocket booster. Sugar is a good propellant (though you’ll need an oxidiser if you’re going far up). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-propellant_rocket#%22Can...

I know sugar is hypergolic with Potassium Bromate, but I wonder if it's hypergolic with RFNA? That would be amazing... if stupidly dangerous.

> RFNA

Isn't this one of those substances that is hypergolic with everything around them, including air, water, and test engineers?

Re: Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)

#24
post #7

We teach our Scouts how Doritos make excellent firestarters. Of course, you only need one or two to star a fire, yet a large family-size sack is required for a typical Scouts meeting.

Cheez-its also work very well, and are easy to store in an altoids tin

Yeah, but it makes the mints taste terrible

Re: Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)

#26
“At this point, the researchers also realized that the heat could inadvertently melt the adhesive cellophane and cause the flaming SPTs to suddenly eject from the toaster. Unfortunately, this did not occur.”

That made me laugh out loud. This research paper could make for a pretty good intro to scientific writing example for any of your 101s.

Re: Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know sugar is hypergolic with Potassium Bromate, but I wonder if it's hypergolic with RFNA? That would be amazing... if stupidly dangerous.

> RFNA Isn't this one of those substances that is hypergolic with everything around them, including air, water, and test engineers?

It's... a little spicy sure, and yeah maybe the acid burns and NO2 exposure are a bit lethal.

But my god man, think of the specific impulse! ;)

Re: Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)

#28
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know sugar is hypergolic with Potassium Bromate, but I wonder if it's hypergolic with RFNA? That would be amazing... if stupidly dangerous.

> RFNA Isn't this one of those substances that is hypergolic with everything around them, including air, water, and test engineers?

You're thinking of chlorine trifluoride [1]. But red fuming nitric acid is also hypergolic with many fuels.

[1] https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo...

Re: Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (1994)

#30
post #17

Since everything is no longer sugar but government subsidized high-fructose-corn-syrup does this even work anymore?

Yes- they have about the same energy content and will burn about the same.

High fructose corn syrup is sugar, and is very similar to table sugar (sucrose). It's about 42% fructose and 58% glucose, while table sugar (sucrose) is a disaccharide, of fructose and glucose bonded together in a 1:1 ratio, so table sugar ends up having slightly more fructose and slightly less glucose.

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