Pepcon

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Rocketmaniac

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Last night as I was going to bed and was flipping through the channels, I caught the very last minute of a Court TV show about "PEPCON" (spelling????).... A single word made me stop.... "AP".....

Were talking about the same AP we know in the rocketry world?

What in the world happened?

Is this related to the "fire" at Aerotech?
 
Pepcon had 7 million pounds of AP basically just laying around and a cracked natural gas line combined for a most spectacular explosion in 2 phases. a small blast busted the gas line, then BOOOOM!!!! Like a small nuke ,shock wave and all.
The AP production was'nt stopped after the first shuttle disaster and it just piled up.
dave
 
The PEPCON disaster was covered in great depth in the HPR Crash 'n Burn issue. Great article from one of the investigators explaining what went wrong, or at least what they could tell went wrong. If you search on the web, you can find a video of the fire and explosion... DDT definitely happened, as a shock wave is visible rolling across the desert floor after the detonation! Very scary, but very interesting too.
 
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