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[Pat Ryan] And Flight Engineer Andre
Kuipers is busy with a software update

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on the space station's Agricultural Camera.

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Flight Engineer Don Pettit is
scheduled to be back at work

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in the Destiny Laboratory
preparing the work space

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at the Microgravity Sciences
Glovebox for the BASS experiment.

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BASS is an acronym for Burning
and Suppression of Solids.

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It's a physical sciences
investigation into both the burning

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and the extinction characteristics
of a variety of fuels in space.

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The principal investigator
for BASS is Dr. Paul Ferkul.

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He's a staff scientist at the National Center

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for Space Exploration Research
in Cleveland, Ohio.

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And he joins us on the phone this morning
from the Telescience Support Center

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at the NASA Glenn Research Center.

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Dr. Ferkul welcome!

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It some excitement for you today to get to
see your experiment being prepared for use.

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[Paul Ferkul] Oh, thanks.

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I'm glad to be here and I'm
glad to be talking with you.

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[Pat] Is this your first
experiment to be performed on orbit?

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[Paul] I was, I participated in an experiment
about 15 years ago as a co-investigator.

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But this is the first time I'm
the principal investigator.

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[Pat] For you, how did you become
interested in this field of burning things?

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[Paul] I think like many of my colleagues
here at NASA I had a good mentor when I was

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in college and there was a, I had an
engineering background, engineering degree.

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And it was an opportunity to do
work at NASA here in Cleveland.

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I went to school at Case Western
Reserve University and my advisor

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at Case Western Reserve had a position
here at NASA for me to do some work.

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And I sort of, went through this fortuitous
sequence of events that led me here an area

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that I really wanted to work
in, mainly the space program.

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[Pat] Do we know much about
how things burn differently

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in space than the way they burn on Earth?

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[Paul] We actually do know quite a bit.

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We know that on Earth we have buoyancy
which is the tendency for hot air to rise.

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Whereas in zero-gravity there is no buoyancy.

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And on Earth we can do testing
on drop towers and aircraft,

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zero-gravity aircraft to get some ideas.

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So we have a good idea of how
things behave in zero-gravity.

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But what is lacking for us is actual
experimental data for long duration burns.

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And that's what we hope to gain in
the space station tests we're doing.

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[Pat] Now there have been
experiments with burning previously

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on the station and on shuttle missions too.

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But this one is going to have more
of an extended period of time?

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[Paul] That's certainly true.

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There've been other, earlier
experiments even going back to the 1980's.

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There were some simple solid
fuel combustion experiments done.

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They were limited in scope.

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They were generally very small
samples and not very numerous.

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So what we hope to do, and there have been other
tests as well that have looked at combustion

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on either the space shuttle or
the Russian Mir space station.

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But this one we, we're trying
to build a database.

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We have many samples we're flying,
actually, a total of 41 samples.

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We're going to burn multiple times
and try to really build a database

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and get some experimental
knowledge of how things behave

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for long-durations in zero-gravity.

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[Pat] Is there a central hypothesis
that's driving your operations here?

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[Paul] There is.

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The basic applied hypothesis is that we
believe that in certain conditions a material

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in zero-gravity will actually be more
flammable than it is normal gravity.

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And there's some theoretical basis for
this and we've done some drop tower tests

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to begin to verify this phenomenon.

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The testing we do right now
to select materials for,

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for use in space for the astronauts' safety all
the tests are done in normal gravity on Earth.

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And so it's always assumed that normal gravity
tests will be conservative and that things

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in space will burn less dangerous.

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But again it turns out our hypothesis is

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that there may be conditions
where the opposite is true.

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That actually in space things
could be more dangerous.

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And of course, that's a concern to NASA.

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[Pat] I mentioned that Don Pettit is
going to be working this morning setting

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up the hardware for, where this
experiment will be conducted.

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Can you describe what hardware is involved here?

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What work is Don doing today?

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[Paul] Sure.

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He's working in a facility called
the Microgravity Science Glovebox.

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It's essentially a large glovebox that
you might see in an ordinary laboratory

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with gloveports in a fairly big working volume.

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Our experiment will plug into that volume.

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So it's a level of containment.

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And our experiment is relatively small.

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It's about the size of an ordinary toaster.

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It consists of a flow duct.

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So there's a fan in our experiment
module to generate airflow.

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We install fuel samples inside our
experiment module which are then ignited,

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observed with video cameras and burned either to
completion or until we decide to put them out.

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[Pat] So there's some, you don't
know how long they'll burn?

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[Paul] We have a limit generally
of a two minute maximum.

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Because within two minutes we should be able
to reach the information that we need to get.

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That should be achievable.

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And were trying to you know, use our fuel
judiciously so we'll try to have them put

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out the fuel at that point so we can
continue in the future with additional tests.

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[Pat] At the time that the experiment
is operating, how is the flame lit?

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I mean Don's not up there
striking matches is he?

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[Paul] That's correct.

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They'll be remotely igniting them.

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Actually, we use a hotwire igniter.

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So again think of a toaster and you have
heated elements in there that glow red hot

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when you apply electrical current.

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So it'll be the same idea.

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We have a small group of igniter wire
that'll glow red hot or almost, actually,

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yellow hot which will be in close
proximity to the fuel sample then ignited.

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[Pat] Now you said there
were 41 different samples.

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Each of them is going to
be ignited multiple times.

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[Paul] That's correct.

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Actually, some will be a onetime use.

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The vast majority will be multiple use samples.

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[Pat] And when are the first
data takes going to begin?

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[Paul] We begin to operations on Friday.

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[Pat] This week?

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[Paul] That's correct.

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[Pat] Now I take it that there aren't
any experiment samples to be returned

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since that would have burned I guess?

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How do you get your data?

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[Paul] Most of our data will
be through our photo.

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So either 35 millimeter still
camera photos or video images

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which will be downlinked everyday to us.

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It will have the full resolution video
and 35 millimeter still pictures.

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[Pat] And then your analysis
is studying the photographs?

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[Paul] That's correct.

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We'll basically get flame
luminosity data, flame shape,

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structure and I guess most importantly how
the flame reacts to different changes in flow

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or when we go to put the flame out.

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How we can extinguish the flame and how
the flame reacts as you extinguish it.

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Then we could use all this information to
compare to our existing models and improve them.

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And develop the better models as a result.

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[Pat] Is there any way at this point to
generalize about what you expect to see?

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[Paul] We expect, well we've got,
we've seen, we've done some tests

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in zero-gravity with these flames.

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Generally they tend to be weaker but
it's a big function of the flow speed.

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So if we, if we blow on them gently we'll
probably get a relatively dim blue flame.

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And as we increase the flow velocity it
will start to transition to a brighter blue

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and then ultimately yellow and sooty.

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So that's how the flame will look.

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We expect, again there will
be some cases that, you know,

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these materials might actually be observed
to burn in zero-gravity and conditions

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that we can't get them to
burn in normal gravity.

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So that will be the exciting finding for us.

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So we expect, we've flown some samples
that we expect will burn up there

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that we can't get to burn in normal gravity.

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[Pat] That would certainly be something that
would be important to know, if there's something

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that does burn in space that we wouldn't expect?

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[Paul] That's correct.

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And we've done some drop tower
tests which are limited in time.

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So we're not sure how they're
going to go for long-duration.

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But we believe they might
actually, might burn up there.

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[Pat] At this point how would
the findings that you get,

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how could they be applied
both in space and on Earth?

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[Paul] I guess as far as NASA is concerned
a direct application is for fire safety.

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You know because NASA selects, is very careful
about selecting materials, configurations

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and is concerned about NASA's,
or astronaut safety.

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There's an extensive set of tests
done on Earth to select materials.

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And it's all done, all these
tests are done on normal gravity.

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Now if our findings, if our hypothesis proves
to be correct we might need to modify the tests

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that we do in normal gravity to consider
effects and conditions where, actually,

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the materials could be more
dangerous in space so we have

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to revisit the testing procedure
that do on Earth.

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And more widely applicable are the results
of these, of these experiments to models.

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So again computer modelers can use these results
to develop sophisticated systems and simulations

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that would apply to many different
kinds of combustion systems,

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not just for these simple fuels and
flames but for wide ranging applications

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such as engines, boilers and so on.

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Anything in our everyday life
that relies on combustion,

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which is as you could imagine
is much of what we rely upon.

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[Pat] The obvious question, that of course
I saved it for last, how dangerous is it

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to be setting fires inside the space station?

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[Paul] Well that's a good question.

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Generally, speaking we don't want the
astronauts to set anything on fire.

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But this has been carefully designed
so there's two levels of containment.

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So as I mentioned earlier, the glovebox
itself is one level of containment.

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Within that, which is a,
that is a sealed vessel,

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there's our experiment which
is also a sealed vessel.

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So there's two levels of containment and
there's no way to set the fuel on fire

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to ignite it unless all the doors are closed.

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So there's many safety constraints in place.

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[Pat] And the first of these
experiment runs gets started on Friday?

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[Paul] That's correct.

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[Pat] Besides, we have another, one other
question that came to us over Twitter

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from @karenofearth asked, "besides
rocket fuel, which we know will burn,

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what else is self-oxidizing and
will burn even in a vacuum."

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[Paul] I guess it depends how you define
rocket fuel and if there's any materials

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that you could imagine that you
have fuel and oxygen pre-mixed,

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that's how a rocket engine works is you deliver
fuel and oxygen separately to the engine

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to generate thrust even in a vacuum of space.

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So you need to, if you don't have
air, like you don't have in space,

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you need to supply your own oxygen.

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So you can imagine there's other
materials on earth that can do that,

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that would also basically ignite and
burn in space besides rocket fuel,

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such as some of the solid rocket engines
that are used for the, even simple, you know,

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rockets that you might buy in
a hobby store to light off.

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Those would also ignite and
burn in space just fine.

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[Pat] Great.

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Your experiment gets started,
its operations, on Friday.

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Good luck.

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[Paul] Thank you very much.

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[Pat] Dr. Paul Ferkul is the Principal
Investigator for Burning and Suppression

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of Solids which is a physical science
investigation into the burning and extinction,

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the characteristics of a
variety of fuels in space.