Bill,

That's interesting.  I spoke with a representative of NASA one time
at Kennedy Space Flight Center.  I asked him what the solid booster
fuel was; he said "ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder in a rubber
bonding matrix."  The consistency is something like a dull-shiny
pencil eraser.  But hey, sounds like they might get more bang (literally)
for their buck using a perchlorate (4 oxygens) than a nitrate (N03).
So, now we can blame NASA for the ozone holes, because they're the ones
throwing tons (literally) of chlorine into the ozone layer with each
shuttle launch. Maybe that's going too far, I suppose there has been
tons MORE Freon produced and released than the shuttle could compete with.

Anyway, I always thought it was ammonium nitrate.  Oh well, that leaves a
smidgen more ammonium nitrate for farmers to fertilize their fields (and for
Timothy McVeigh types).

Gustaf

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pic microcontroller discussion list
> [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of William Chops Westfield
> Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 10:47 AM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Re: ] My first PCB production
>
>
> On Sunday, Feb 29, 2004, at 17:42 US/Pacific, Edward Gisske wrote:
>
> > I think the stuff that Kepro used to sell (and maybe still does) is
> > ammonium peroxychlorate.
>
> Ammonium persulphate (or other persulfate.)  Ammonium perchlorate is
> rocket fuel (~80% of space shuttle solid boosters.)  And there is no
> such thing as peroxychlorate (oxidation states of chlorine: -1, +1, +3,
> +5, +7: chloride, hypochlorite (ClO-), chlorite (ClO2-), chlorate
> (ClO3-), and perchlorate (ClO4-))
>
> For the boards I etch chemically, I've been using homemade copper
> chloride etchant, as descibed (except for the home-made part) here:
>
> http://users.rcn.com/rexa/Projects/CuCl_ech.html
>
> This doesn't have to be disposed of, cause it keeps making more as you
> use it.  Very ... elegant.
>
> BillW
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
> mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu
>

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu