I’m reminded of the toxic gas warnings from Close Encounters. Is the debris really dangerous or are the warnings just a scare tactic to ward off civilians?
DDG linked to this in another thread.
While I’m no expert, I’m sure that the shuttles use many kinds of dangerous substances–they aren’t exactly powered by gasoline.
And even if it is only a scare tactic, it’s done with good reason–they need those parts for the investigation.
From DDG’s link:
**Warning signs of contact might not appear for hours after exposure, and extreme symptoms might not show up for days, so a victim might be unaware he or she has been exposed until it is too late for treatment. **
Hmmm. That’s a pretty convenient gestation time to keep people guessing long enough for authorities to get a handle on things. ‘Symptoms may not appear for several days, so don’t let the lack of reported health problems fool you. By the time you start to feel something…it may be TOO LATE!’
I thought the same thing… I’d like to think anyone who found debris would report it for the sake of the investigation, good taste not withstanding, but if I was in charge I don’t think I’d be above a bit of exaggeration to prevent people taking that flight circuitry home. Granted the manoevering thrusters run on some nasty stuff, and it’s better to be on the safe side, I still find it odd that nobody’s said “Oh, yeah, it’s not that dangerous really. Stay away from the big chunks and don’t worry about anything, honest”
One of the lead pictures in the local Nacogdoches paper on Sunday showed an astronaut (brought up from Houston to supervise the search) picking up a piece of debris in a field with his bare hands. Obviously he’s qualified to evaluate the material and the risk before touching it, but I thought it would have been more useful for PR purposes if they’d shown him in a full environment suit picking it up with tongs. That picture probably offset all the warnings the media has been carrying about toxic dangers.
most of the substances mentioned are gases, so unless you find a pressurized container they will have long gone. Only monommethyl hydrazine is a liquid (bp about 86 C), and I doubt whether it would still be around after falling from the sky and heating to whatever. Just a scare tactic probably to encourage you to turn things in
Most likely just to keep people from moving it around and screwing up their computer analyses of the debris field (e.g. plot all the debris landing sites and trace 'em back up to a single point in the sky).
One of the TV news outfits reported some people going to the hospital with burns from picking up hot chunks of metal immediately after they landed, however. :rolleyes:
It’s probably half and half. The astronaut probably knew that whatever piece he was picking up was not likely to be contaminated, either because of what part of the ship it was from or because carbonized residue indicated that any dangerous substances were burnt away.
If you come in contact with parts of a fuel tank or other materials that may have been saturated with rocket fuel or other hazardous substances, you certainly may get sick or even die. I read somewhere that one component in rocket fuel can block oxygen receptors and cause you to slowly suffocate.
Of course, it they said nothing and some idiot died from picking up parts, they would be open to lawsuits.
I think they were just trying to scare people from salvaging pieces due to:
1 - Comming right out early and often saying that some parts are very dangerous but
2 - Not naming anything harmful that might be on board and
3 - later the best they can come up with is thurster fuel which shoud be long gone.
But then again if we were working on some chem/bio weapon agent up there we couldn’t exactly say so.
I beg to differ; I watched coverage from the first reports of loss of contact until the President’s first address to the nation - over and over again, IMMEDIATELY after the FIRST request not to go near the debris was announced, the network reports kept talking about the toxicity of the hydrazine, ammonium, and especially nitrogen tetroxide.
zwaldd, the description of N[sub]2[/sub]O[sub]4[/sub] (Nitrogent Tetroxide) given in DDG’s link is accurate. It wasn’t something made up just to keep people away from the debris long enough for them to “get a handle on things”…this is some NASTY, NASTY stuff.
Here is an Australian write-up of N[sub]2[/sub]O[sub]4[/sub] written in 1996 - I think this is Australia’s equivalent to the United States’ Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS).
Huh…after further reading my cite, I noted that it’s used in bleaching flour! Well, it’s unbleached flour from now on for me! 
critter42