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Comment by shellfishgene

18 hours ago

If it was really an oxygen/fuel mix burning I don't think you can do much of anything to stop that.

8 comments

shellfishgene

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littlestymaar  17 hours ago

If you cooled the mixture at low enough temperature, you'd stop it from burning (like when you pour water on top of a camp fire), but it's not clear how you're supposed to do that in a spaceship where you can't carry a few tons of water for your sprinklers.

  • ben_w  15 hours ago

    > If you cooled the mixture at low enough temperature, you'd stop it from burning (like when you pour water on top of a camp fire), but it's not clear how you're supposed to do that in a spaceship where you can't carry a few tons of water for your sprinklers.

    Also water would make it hotter, given this is liquid oxygen.

    • littlestymaar  11 hours ago

      It's not liquid at the point of ignition, that's the thing: if you mixed liquid oxygen and fuel nothing would happen expect the fuel would freeze. For a fire to take place the temperature must reach the fire point temperature, and if you manage to get your fire below this temperature then the fire stops. I don't know how low this temperature can be when the oxidizer is pure oxygen and maybe it's so low water wouldn't be enough, but then you can imagine using other fluids. The problem being the mass burden it adds to a spacecraft, I'm not it'd make any sense given that such q leak should happen in the first place.

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  • varjag  15 hours ago

    There are other methods too, e.g. fire inhibitors (like Halon or whatever is allowed now) or shockwave to disrupt fire boundary. But I doubt they are very practical on a spaceship.