re: #360 William Barnett-Lewis

All I had to see was the word Fluorine. Shudder. Back in the 50’s & 60’s there were proposals for using that shit as oxidizer in rockets! Or worse, Lithium/Fluorine/LH2! Just imagine how much of Florida would be covered by the cloud if that blew up on the pad.

Of course there were the fluorine pumped gas lasers that were experimented with for Star Wars but they weren’t anywhere near as bad. “Just” a rail road tanker car full of fluorine in each satellite.

All of which makes SpaceX’s proposed Methane/LH2 engine look downright boring by comparison…

The fun thing about Fluorine Hydrogen: You can mix the two in a climate controlled dark room and set off the explosion with a camera strobe. It’s that unstable.