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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

It's way more dangerous than non-flammable inert gas. Why would you even try to whitewash it like that? It's just silly.

The amount of gas produced in a high school chemistry lab compared to a full tank is just silly. To compare a high school lab environment with safety equipment and assuming a trained teacher to a couple of knuckleheads with no safety training or equipment doing a balloon launch in a very drought striken part of the state is so not even close to the same.

But thanks for trying to make it seem so much less dangerous than what it is

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As far as propellants go it is relatively safe. If you want dangerous, here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_trifluoride#Rocket_pr...

> It's way more dangerous than non-flammable inert gas.

Well yeah, but inert gas doesn’t really help you accelerate massive objects to orbital velocity. It is good for taking up space in the tanks as you burn the propellant though.

Edit: nevermind, should probably understand the context of the discussion before joining it.

huh? i'm launching a friggin balloon. what story thread are you reading that i'm lifting payload into orbit?

Ah, my bad. Hadn’t read all the way back to the beginning of the thread

Or perhaps you're trying to make it seem so much more dangerous than it is.

> It's way more dangerous than non-flammable inert gas.

I dunno, some inert gases can be dangerous. You don't want to inhale an inert gas that's heavier than air.

It's not a nitrous tank. What kind of backwoods hillbilly do you take me for to think I'd be huffing a tank of inert gas?

> Why would you even try to whitewash it like that?

Because non-flammable, inert gases aren't that useful for pushing things into space. The window of discussion here (in the broader sense, obv) is inherently explosive.

Yes, there's an important safety aspect here but NASA aren't taking advice from HN threads.

I happen to agree with GP. While hydrogen provides certain challenges, the human race has to embrace it. It's possibly the only workaround for a near-time methane shortage, especially as it can be generated locally (and cheaply) via PV. A much cheaper "battery" than Li-based batteries, and possibly a fuel for CCGT power stations to run from (blended and not).

the actual window of discussion was launching a weather balloon. the weight of the payload was less than 16oz. it was not attempting to achieve orbit. its sole purpose was to go as high as the expansion of the balloon material would allow at whatever speed it could before falling back to terra firma.

it was tale of how me personally had a near experience using hydrogen, but was convinced that might just be a bad idea. the fact that a NASA rocket is experiencing an issue with hydrogen is what prompted me to share the story. everyone else seeems to think i'm launching rockets with hydrogen as a fuel source.

Well, it was handling a tank of compressed hydrogen. In your story the balloon was just a foil.

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