"Badly burned rocket hobbyist dies"

This was in today's Sacramento Bee (April 21). Anyone know anything more about this? Antelope is a suburb northeast of Sacramento, California.

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Badly burned rocket hobbyist dies By Elizabeth Hume -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, April 21, 2006 SACRAMENTO - A man severely burned while building small rockets in his Antelope garage earlier this month died Wednesday night in UC Davis Medical Center, authorities said.

Robert Wayne Compton, 62, was in his garage on Grey Livery Way when the fire started about 7:30 p.m. April 9. The fire was quickly put out, but Compton was severely burned, Sacramento Metro Fire District officials said.

Compton was transported to the Medical Center with burns over more than

30 percent of his body.

An investigation indicated Compton was distilling hydrogen peroxide just before the blaze, district spokesman Engineer Christian Pebbles said.

************************** David Takemoto-Weerts NAR #80818 L1 Davis, CA
Reply to
dltakemotoweerts
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OMFG ... I know/knew this guy ...

Reply to
lunarlos

I remember him at one time being a Arocket regular.

That H202 scares the hell out of me :(

Ted Novak TRA#5512 IEAS#75

snipped-for-privacy@ucdavis.edu wrote:

Reply to
tdstr

Found on the Arocketry.net site. Robert Compton was the president of the Sacramento L5 Society.

"Robert Compton's static test of his hydrogen peroxide rocket motor"

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Reply to
dltakemotoweerts

Ok I am NOT going to pull a Jerry Irvine and speak badly about a guy who is recently deceased (ala Jim Turner).

I will however suggest that NO ONE, NO ONE ever work with H2O2, O2, or H2 or any caustic chemicals and expect a rain suit to protect you:

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The picture does appear to have someone wearing a face visor ... but I don't think the rain suit would help much. Another NO NO!!! - His hands are exposed ... oh dear ...

When working with such things, you need a face and head protector, and special coverings that keep the liquids from eating through to your flesh ... and a resperator for breathing is important also ...

I love the REAL ROCKET SCIENCE that is being undertaken in this photo! Just wish it were done is a safer manner.

Reply to
lunarlos

Lunar,

Good suggestions. I was wondering why said intrepid builder type was wearing something that could _melt_ with any half way hot flame...

Bob

Reply to
Robert Juliano

Just wondering......the rubber suit protects against caustic burns.......would nomex protect against the chems AND the fire? Was he figuring on only caustic protection and no chance of fire? Pity to hear of the calamity.....

Chuck

Reply to
Chuck Rudy

Check out the testing done by Armadillo Aerospace on the effects of Hydrogen Peroxide.

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did our own test to find out what would happen if there was a peroxide spill on various types of clothing. Wear cotton. Leather is, uh, "exciting".

Reply to
Bill Richardson

Chuck Rudy wrote in news:RWg2g.127$0z.6@trnddc01:

I suspect Nomex would not be any good in such an oxidizing environment. (conc. H2O2)

Reply to
Jim Yanik

Fantastic video Bill ... thank you.

The more I study what is going on in the L^5 pics and vids ... the more I am SCARED!

Ok first off, why are they firing motors with the exhaust pointing down ... what if the steaks they have driven into the ground give way and the motor and test stand take flight?

2nd should the motor detonate, is it did in the pics from another test, what is to stop parts from flying about? Shouldn't they have sandbags surrounding the test area and have the test area semi-sunken into the earth for greater protection? They should have layed the motor down horizontal and had it pushing against a load cell rated for their expected thrust profile.

I watched one video of their motor test where the videographer was hiding behind a car door ... OMG! Lets see, motor explodes, I am behind a car door, motor part hits door, shatters glass ... now I have hundreds of parts flying in my face ...

The yellow rain suit has been discussed ...

Ok I am not trying to 'knit pick', but these experiments had DEATH writen all over them from the beginning.

The article says he was trying to distill H2O2 in his garage ... WTF was he thinking? Or maybe NOT thinking!

I think that instead of just letting this blow away, the hobby (Amateur) should investigate this and present a report so that other people don't do these sorts of things in their garages ...

... I mean if I had known he was doing this stuff, I would have told him to stop and get a safety checklist made, and proper equipment. When I used to work with military aircraft, we would sometimes service the O2 systems on vehicles. They would wheel out a big chiller, and a guy would suit up from head to tow in THICK nomex and other fabrics, thick gloves, and full head/face visor, ground himself and the O2 chiller ... and even then the job was dangerous ...

Reply to
lunarlos

A year or two ago in Houston, a NASA engineer who was designing an amateur H2O2 motor was fueling the motor in his backyard for a test (!!!) when it exploded. It killed him and damaged 3 homes.

Dave

Reply to
David Bacque

The video was interesting. I recall back int he 70's before he was basically banned from US race tracks, Slammin' Sammy Miller's H2O2 Vanishing Point rocket car was doing 300 mph in an eight mile......He went on to England

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where he played with his rocket motor for quite some time before IIRC he was killed trying to fight an oil well fire. I noted the fueling requirements........quite a distance, but thinking back, if he had gone out of control it could have be a catastrophe in those old pseudo safety days of racing.

Chuck

Reply to
Chuck Rudy

I thought that cotton was verboten, when it came to H2O2. I thought that coth products caught fire.

Bob

Reply to
Robert Juliano

That's actually the one scenario in which hiding behind the car door is OK: automotive safety glass can't shatter dangerously. Shrapnel punching through a couple of layers of very thin sheet metal is the bigger problem -- a car door is quite thick, giving a sense of security. Unfortunately, almost all of that thickness is air, so it doesn't do a whole lot of good.

Reply to
Joe Pfeiffer

Thanks. So then all thoe OLD photos of rocket tests back in the 1930s are the way to go? i.e. sandbags surrounding the engine and test stands ... and even then there is NO guarantee of complete safety!

Werner von Braun almost lost his life early in his rocketery experiments ... he had a fellow rocketeer die in his arms when rocket shrapnel hit his friend in the neck and severed his artery ... even the professionals die from time to time ... tought call. On one had, we love to see people get involved ... on the other hand, we hate to see them die needlessly ... I guess in the end, the happy medium is MODEL ROCKETRY.

Reply to
lunarlos

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