Creative Licence
Posted at 13:08:00
on Fri, April 15th 2005 by graham
in:
science
New shuttle tank ready for lift-off
"The [Columbia] accident showed that the tank's foam insulation, necessary to keep the shuttle's exotic rocket propellants as cold as minus 217 Celsius (-423 Fahrenheit)"
Except that the fuel stored in the tank isn't exotic in any way, shape or form. It's liquid oxygen (in the forward half of the tank) and liquid hydrogen (in the aft half). Put basically, for those who hadn't spotted it, it's water, plain and simple, just split into its component elements.
You've got to love journalists. And you have to wonder just how much this kind of creative licence on the part of science reporters is responsible for getting people interested in science in the first place. I mean, if it read "hydrogen and oxygen" or even "water" as opposed to "exotic fuels", just how many people would find that immediately intriguing do you think?
Perhaps we need someone to do the same for politics. Now that would be interesting.
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