The V-2 project was plenty lethal even before the methylated-fuel incident - it has the dubious honor of being one of the few operational weapons systems to kill more people during its manufacture than it killed when used (mainly due to being built using slave labour). Also, even though it wasn't the reason for the V-2 running on alcohol, Germany WAS running very short of hydrocarbon fuels late in the war, their main source of petroleum (the Ploiești oilfields in Romania) having been cut off in August 1944 following a coup d'état by the king of Romania; although Germany retained control of some small oilfields in Hungary until March 1945, their main source of hydrocarbon fuels for the last seven and a half months of the war were energy-inefficient coal hydrogenation plants.
My dad used to work in Plesetsk Cosmodrome during his military service in Soviet times. Not sure how much roket fuel he consumed, but he told me about their hobby of making icecream by freezing milk with sugar using decommissioned liquid oxigen.
I've eaten ice-cream made with liquid nitrogen and have to say that it was the smoothest ice-cream I had ever tasted. Props to your dad. Very good use of cryogenic materials.
Actually, it was a bit more subtle than 'flying liquor store' - the nickname was MASANDRA, after the well-known Massanda Winery, and the abbreviation decoded as: "Mikoyan Artyom, Syn Armyanskogo Naroda, Dal Radost Aviatoram" - Mikoyan Artyom (the M in MiG), Son of Armenian People (he was Armenian), Gave Joy to the Aviators.
Reminds me, at university there was a joke that the definition of "evaporation allowance" on stored ethanol was "how much lab alcohol the technicians can consume in a year". LOL
Was a prpblem at the laser lab too. Used to use anhydrous EtOH to clean precision laser optics. Eventually they switched over to methanol because of it. 😅
So they added a "purgative" to the rocket fuel to prevent people drinking it? I bet that resulted in some........... *drum roll* EXPLOSIVE INCIDENTS! *brum-tish* Take my wife.
You should have mentioned the MiG-21's radar that was cooled by alcohol. There are stories that Soviet aircraft were often grounded because the alcohol had been consumed by the airfield personnel.
the talk between the engineering and other departments for filling the rocked with Vodka for a load-test must have been great: engineer: "Sir, we need 15 railcars of vodka" projectleader: " are you drunk?" engineer: "No, we need it to do a load-test of the rocket". projectleader: "and what do we do with that after the test? We can't just throw it away" Engineer: "We got some friends we can invite"
projectleader: " are you drunk?" Engineer: "not yet, but after the loadtest i'll be, im quite sure of that. Dimitry said some lines have "leaks" in them and we cant waste such nice, fresh Vodka-esque liquid, right?"
Jokes aside, on some USSR planes coolant for electronics was alcohol solution almost like vodka in percentage (called Massandra in honor of famous winery). People in charge of those systems were very respected, of course...
Michael Farrell however, in this case it is! So don’t be so quick to correct, when you yourself are really just guessing as you most definitely didn’t know for certain. In any case, it isn’t the biggest leap of logic, for which a simple SearchEngine enquiry confirms the Pittsburgh origins of this expression!
Umm.... no it's not... Rewatch the video and CAREFULLY read what has been said here, people from all over the world referring to alcohol as 'rocket fuel' has nothing to do with this video or the particular stories Scott is referring too.... Don;t be so quick to correct ;)
I'd also point out that UrbanDictionary.com is not a reliable source for factual information, not that the information you presented from there had anything to do with what I said... I'm somewhat confused as to your position though as if you believe the origins of the term are from Pittsburgh then you are AGREEING with me....
When I was younger, I drank a shot of the 95% stuff to win a bet. It immediately wanted to climb back out again, but eventually was persuaded to stay down. And after that, drinks was free that night. . . and that's pretty much all I remember of that night. Good stuff.
I bought a bottle of ever clear for the fuck of it. Tried a few swigs; people say alcohol burns going down, but this was ridiculous. However, after the first swig, they became progressively easier. I don't remember much of that night; I just remember waking up the next morning, and my mom asking me why my clothes are all over the floor near the laundry room and the washer has peanuts in it... Fuck if I know. Lol
It was the summer of 2011. A couple of friends and I spent our vacation in Italy. Two of them made the 900km trip on 50cc "mopeds" and complained about engine difficulties after facing heavy rain in the Alpes. In an attempt to absorb possible water in the fuel tank, a bottle of 95% drinking alcohol was bought - but not filled into the tanks right away... Fast forward to late in the evening, when we are sitting on the balcony. Chatting, drinking, smoking, all casual and relaxed, while some of the other guys, without anyone paying too much attention, start messing around with the stuff, you know. Using pieces of tinfoil to shape tiny cups, pouring a litte ethanol in there and lighting it on fire. And then, in the space of maybe 5 seconds, everything went to complete shit. The tinfoil starts to melt, burning liquid slowly runs across the crooked plastic table. Without even thinking, our little pyro tries to blow the fire out, but actually sends the stuff flying off the table, where it hits another guy - and that guy was (of course) the one holding that very bottle of ethanol. Guy freaks out, drops the damn thing, glass bottle hits the tiled floor and in the blink of an eye, two pints worth of industrial grade ethanol goes up in flames. Before I even knew what happened, everything in my field of view was a fucking inferno. Literally the entire balcony was on fire and there we were, some more than others, standing (bare foot) right in a pool of blazing fluid riddled with glass shards. Fun times!
A biologist mate told me a story once about a guy that was supposed to store a whale fetus in a tank. He gained permission to obtain several thousand liters of high-grade alcohol to keep the fetus from decomposing. Years later, it was discovered that the liquid in the tank was in fact formaldehyde.
Sad fact: they discovered the switcheroo when a post-doc died from formaldehyde poisoning after a night of heavy partying that included a dare to chug whale-fetus-infused vodka.
So good to know, If one becomes stranded on another planet with just an oxygen liquifier and a bunch of copper pipe. Distill your own go juice from local plants.
A couple years ago I took a tour of a Balao class submarine by one of the few remaining museum docents who is an actual WW2 naval veteran. He told us a bit about the torpedoes, and how the American torpedoes at the start of the war had many problems. One of the problems was that they had engines that burned compressed oxygen, available on the submarines' compressed gasses vessels, and ethanol. Seems many of the submariners would drain some of the ethanol torpedo fuel to consume as hooch. That led to regular occurences of torpedoes not reaching their targets on long shots. The Germans typically kept a case of Bier on board their subs, and the captains would give the OK to consume it when they were less than a day out from their return to port, to celebrate surviving a mission. During the later years of the war the US Navy started to put formaldehyde in the torpedo fuel. But the sailors figured out how to filter that out eventually. Thanks to Joe at the NJ Naval Museum!
My experimental rocket motor ran on propane fuel and compressed air. I has propane for the heating torch and a sizable air tank and compressor. I injected the Air from the end of the combustion chamber and the propane from a central post. The test procedure was to start the propane and light it as it came out of the nozzle then add air until the unburned cone retreated into the motor. Then add more air until it roared most Impressively. The test ended when the Air ran out. I was happy that it sort of worked but dissapointed it was an complex weed burner but not a rocket engine. This happened 60 years ago when I was 14. Other lesson never let a curious kid alone in a machine shop filled with tools he knows how to operate. Great fun.
"Dont just actually drink rocket fuel, They dont make it liked they used to" - Scott Manley 2018 I ahve been watching your vids for some time now.... and well. I found them Interesting Educational and Entertaining. Subbed :P
the really nasty ones are the hypergolics - Hydrazine (and its derivatives) and Nitrogen Tetroxide - every time I see the old films of the hyperbolic engine fires, I cringe when I see the orange smoke - I think the Triton used fior Gemini was burning hyperbolic's..... ..... Alcohol is actually pretty tame in comparison. I still love to watch the firings of the Saturn F1 engine, which burned RP-1 - kerosene...lots and lots of kerosene and oxidized with Liquid Oxygen (lots and lots of it) - tons per second per engine. I love your videos - sanity in the youtube swamp - thank you
Passing reference to biofuels reminded me of butanol as a petrol substitute. No engine modifications required (same octane rating more or less) and lower volatility/flammability/explosion risk. Makes me wonder what other alcohols have been tried...
When I busted up my spine and could not go back to sea I got into distilling vodka (it's legal here in NZ). Strange hobby for a non drinker to get into. I was just fascinated with the process and trying to get a pure vodka with no discernible aftertastes. Family liked it and especially liked the one I would soak in cinnamon sticks. I did not feel right about supplying vodka to people so quit. Now I have gallons of fairly decent vodka sitting in my living room in five liter bottles. it's everclear strength because I do not dilute until I deiade what kind of spring water I want to try (and because i would also make lemone celllo). This video gives me ideas for new uses for my vodka still. Make a rocket! Move over Rocket Labs. There's a new player in town. I would have to be a bit more careful this time. last time I was about 8 years old and tried to make a rocket in my back garden using two stroke lawn mower fuel. Set myself on fire and jumped in the big concrete monstrosity pond mt step dad had made. .
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I don't remember the source now, but I heard that the Soviets had issues with their R-1 (Basically a straight V2 clone, with changes so it could actually be manufactured by soviet industry at the time. Turbopumps are finicky.) rocket. It apparently literally "fell short", but not by a consistent amount. The story was that once they figured out that the issue was the troops drinking some of the propellant, that was fixed in that the R-2 uses methanol.
I did some searching. It's mentioned in several places ( www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/R/R_series.html , www.astronautix.com/v/v-2.html , nerdfighteria.info/v/YQfy5u3yOZQ/ )
Because a few years back some of the members stole it from the founder and did nothing with it for several years. Only past year have they started back up but only doing smaller tests then before with no solid plans for manned flight.
You have no clue what you are talking about...search up their channel and theres a video currently 5 days ago about plans on the spica manned rocket. Peter madsen is who alendandre is talking about
Scott, word was that torpedoes used in American submarines in WW2 used ethyl alcohol which was occasionally appropriated to fuel crew celebrations. Now, I don't know whether there was any truth to such rumors, but it makes for some interesting sea stories!
Lest we forget, I served on submarines out of San Diego and can offer some insights into the consumption of torpedo alcohol. Some torpedos used alcohol as a fuel and the alcohol was also consumed by the sailors who faithfully served. We called it torpedo-alcohol, or "Gilley." We survived, hahaha
AYE Scott your videos are great, I watch everyday; hilarious intellectual content is my forte'. But I need you to answer a question for me. Can you create a plasma by heating a solid fuel/liquid fuel under a lava rock. then melting it down with the combustible fluids intact. Allowing the form of the three bodies combined become the 4th, Plasma?
Has anyone used alcohol in a large modern rocket engine? I mean one where the fuel and oxidizer is also used to drive the fuel pumps unlike the V2 and Redstone where the fuel pumps were driven by a separate system using hydrogen peroxide.
One uses what one has... I was mostly thinking of Brazil since they use ethanol as fuel to a large extent. Might be cheaper than the highly refined RP-1 too.
Well, for starters, you can distil alcohol from pretty much anything that grows. I've heard that in some distant rural areas of Russia they even manage to make it out of saw dust.
I'm not surprised if SpaceX has an ethanol-LOX engine in the pipeline as a future R&D project because ethanol is a perfect bio-fuel. The liquid methane they're using for the BFR is produced from petroleum where bio-ethanol is not.
My aunt told me story from my grandfather. He's usually was silent about WWII but sometimes told creepy stories. He was in soviet army. Once they passed beside some factory and there was cisterns with spirits inside. One soldier fill up some canister and moved with it somewhere this soldier was stopped by some soviet "officer" he checked what's inside and shoot out this soldier.... Actually I've never think about that from such perspective why there was so many alcohol in one place maybe it was simply to clear electronics connections but maybe for rockets who knows...
That killed a lot of people in the USA. So many tried to distill the methanol out, but they couldn't. That's where most of the "went blind" from drinking home brew alcohol came from, they were distilling the denatured stuff. It still kills people to this day.
Back when EU made it allowed to sell methanol in grocery stores, it created problems is Finland where methanol wasn't allowed in normal stores because drunks would buy it and go blind or die. When told, EU didn't believe them and said that no one would do that because the containers clearly said "don't drink".
Add water, distill off and discard the methanol. Repeat until no more methanol remains. Salt out the water. Distill until your desired purity is reached.
just using sugar and yeast, have it ferment then distill is easier and safe. Yes, criminals has done stuff like that for sale as its cheaper and easier to do in scale, green gasoline with high alcohol content is an modern favorite.
@@magnemoe1 thing with methanol is: you can get that by fermentation, too. Actually, you usually do. And if you do not 100% know what you do, or your gear is just a little finicky, or you are to greedy and don´t cut off enough of the pre-run, you get that into your booze and go blind.
Well done and informative video as always. I love what you've been doing with your channel lately. All us KSP fans are finally learning a thing or two about real rocket science!
Great information. I recently added ethanol to a turbo S2000 I built. I had to install larger fuel injectors and a more powerful fuel pump but the car made around 50 more horsepower than 93 octane on the first dyno session. On such a light car, it made a very noticeable difference. The biggest difference is felt in the lower RPM range with the increase in torque. I have a short video uploaded to TH-cam. I really enjoyed learning about the history of ethanol in this video and how it was used as rocket fuel. This is something I’ll certainly think about while driving around on ethanol fuel.
Glad you mentioned the lower MW that water contributes in alcohol but off ratio,i.e. rich burning hydrocarbon fuels also lowers MW by having more free unburnt H2 in the exhaust plus lowering flame temp. And yes Germany had little to no crude oil of their own so potato fermented ethanol was the obvious choice. Ironically pure ammonia used in the X-15 performs as well as kerosene but is transported as a non-flammable gas because of its extremely narrow flammability range. As always I love your great videos Scott. Thank you, Ken
I got to play with World War II torpedoes, while crewing on a restored PT Boat some years ago. The Mark 12 and Mark 14 torpedoes were on destroyers,subs, and most warships in the U.S. Navy in WWII. They were powered by an ethanol based liquid fueled steam turbine. My dad was in the Navy in World War II and described how sailor' s would drink the "torpedo juice",as they called the alcohol they took from the torpedoes. The Navy got fed up and put a foul tasting colored chemical in the fuel, to stop the practice, lol. The sailors responded by taking a loaf of bread, cutting the ends off the loaf and poured the torpedo fuel through the bread end wise top to bottom. The bread filtered the chemical out of the alcohol and gave it a pink color. Reportedly the cocktail called a "pink lady" came from this process. Better living through chemistry.
You, sir, are a master storyteller. Wish you would quit that pesky day-job of yours and spend even more time enlightening and entertaining the rest of us.
Nope. The phrase comes from wooing a woman. Candy she will enjoy and may win you her affections over time. Liquor will get her sloshed and she'll be willing alot sooner.
Reminds me of something I heard of a N2O-ethanol mix being used for some small rockets, nicknamed "party fuel" as both are sometimes used as intoxicants.
Well, I went down on 31st street to pick up a jug of alcohol told the man to put in some water but he wouldn't put in a drop at all one hundred percent alcohol - now let me have some -- rory gallagher, irish astronaut
My friend’s father or uncle had learned how to safely drink jet fuel. He filtered jet fuel through many loaves of bread, leaving just alcohol. He was in the navy and was quickly discharged.
Consider we are Stone Age in celestial propulsion schemes and it boils down to two equations explaining a common UFO behavior too simply to ignore. Fg = mass1•mass2/d² Fq = charge1•charge2/d With d equal, charge is exponentially stronger a force than gravity, so, using charge not thrust is how to traverse space. Consider how simply vertical acceleration is explained by one of the masses at the surface caused by reluctance in the minerals. Zap a zillion volt plasma between them you take off from repulsion, a key difference ... easy to model. Ymmv.
Awesome as usual. The "natural" laugh ate the end should be a trade mark from now on, please consider that! hahahahah, t´was really nice! Keep the good work!
Soviet era advanced fighter jets used nearly pure ethanol in the hydraulic systems- according to Viktor Belenko, a Mig-Pilot who escaped USSR flying his fighter at wavetop level across the Sea of Japan to a Civilian Airport in the 1970s. He said the aircraft frequently had to be pulled from the flight line because of ground crew tippling. Don't know if any of that has carried over to Federation flight ops. So I've been arguing against converting US corn crops to alcohol as an additive to gasoline, for many reasons. One was that I keep reading that a given mass of ethanol has only 2/3 the available chemical energy compared to a similar mass of gasoline. That is, _one gallon of gasoline has the energy of _*_one-and-one-half gallons_*_ of ethanol._ As I recall, the entire point that was used to *_sell_* the program was just to demonstrate that "renewable" plant-derived fuel could run vehicles, and we weren't limited to petroleum products, that will someday disappear. But with crop subsidies to pals of Congresscritters this has become a permanent unchallengeable program that will outlast Cockroaches. Meanwhile every step of Corn-based ethanol-in-gasoline has a number of _infelicitous consequences_: raises the price and reduces availability of corn worldwide, hurting the people with the least ability to find alternatives; Every Single Step of the process uses a lot of energy - plowing, planting, cultivating, pest & weed control, harvesting, shelling, transport, fermenting, distilling, transport to the refining/blending facilities, then distribution. For all that cost and labor, let's DRINK the stuff, not Burn it! >;0)
Russian submarine crews used to syphon off the ethanol fuel from earlier torpedoes. During one inspection it was found that none of a vessels torpedoes were functional due to this habit.
Huh... so this explains the "drinking rocket fuel" thing on old sci-fi movies like "Forbidden Planet" and "Moon Zero Two". I was always confused by that because I was more familiar with the kerosene and hydrazine based rocket fuels, and you really don't want to drink those.
I worked as a Temp at DAW in Salt Lake in the early 2000s bonding clean room panels. We had to wipe down the aluminum panels with pure ethanol, lay down a thermoadhesive sheet, then a honeycomb, another glue sheet & the top aluminum sheet then bake it for a few minutes. Everybody came out of there every night with a BAC level above DWI. They were closed when I came back a couple years ago. Seems somebody stole a copy of "Oracle" (not gonna get far with that)
Funny how the Tu-22 was called the "flying booze carrier" because of the execive amount of alcohol the air conditioning had in its tank. Pilots and ground crew alike would be hammered out of their minds because of it very frequently. Edit: Heck it became an unofficial currency it was so common for all aircraft types.
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Actually legitimate chemists say 'gasoline' because that's a specific term where 'petrol' (short for petroleum) means any given hydrocarbon in liquid conditions. The Spanish speaking world calls it 'gasolina.' Germans call it 'Benzin' after Karl Benz invented the gasoline engine.
I'd like a cool, refreshing glass of hydrazine, please.
David Kusel no can do, ive got aerozine if that fits your fancy.
Me too, with a dash of (RFNA) Red-Fuming Nitric Acid.
And also two shots of dimethylmercury.
Dont forget the high test peroxide!
Oremo Oremo do you also have htpb? Im hungry
So the rocket of Yeager, master of high speed flight at the time, was basically powered by the key ingredient of … Jägermeister? 😜
that was an excellent video. thanks scott manley.
Nitpicking...: 3:19 Actually it’s the oxygen that boils off first (about 8 degrees higher boiling point)
Fun fact: The V-2 was powered by 75% alcohol vodka generated from a mass of 30 tonnes of potato snatched from (who knows who)
I prefer using tire rubber and laughing gas. :)
They still do.
Just don’t drink rocket fuel, advice for life there Scott
During this video I thaught that Scott is some kind of proffesional degustator and this is some alcoholic revue channel :-)
The V-2 project was plenty lethal even before the methylated-fuel incident - it has the dubious honor of being one of the few operational weapons systems to kill more people during its manufacture than it killed when used (mainly due to being built using slave labour).
Also, even though it wasn't the reason for the V-2 running on alcohol, Germany WAS running very short of hydrocarbon fuels late in the war, their main source of petroleum (the Ploiești oilfields in Romania) having been cut off in August 1944 following a coup d'état by the king of Romania; although Germany retained control of some small oilfields in Hungary until March 1945, their main source of hydrocarbon fuels for the last seven and a half months of the war were energy-inefficient coal hydrogenation plants.
*insert Russian joke about potato filtration*
drink safe !
I really hope they didn’t have a cigarette after they drunk it!
Not recording this video while being completely drunk was a missed opportunity!
I totally thought he was going to pull out a beer bottle at any moment
missed the opportunity... or he just holds his liquor really well! (which comes with the accent, right?)
He should of gotten drunk off of rocket fuel.
Truth is, I don't really change that much when I'm really drunk.
+Scott Manley It is the world around that changes I'm guessing? :)
My dad used to work in Plesetsk Cosmodrome during his military service in Soviet times. Not sure how much roket fuel he consumed, but he told me about their hobby of making icecream by freezing milk with sugar using decommissioned liquid oxigen.
Maxisokol S wow! Your dad is a legend!
I've eaten ice-cream made with liquid nitrogen and have to say that it was the smoothest ice-cream I had ever tasted. Props to your dad. Very good use of cryogenic materials.
cool AF! If they wanted to show off I suppose they could serve it flaming w/out adding any 151 proof rum
круто!
why would you decommission lox? it's not like it goes bad.
In the same vein, the MiG-25 Foxbat Soviet interceptor originally used pure alcohol to de-ice it's wings. Crews nicknamed it "the flying liquor store"
Very Russian humor
Actually, it was a bit more subtle than 'flying liquor store' - the nickname was MASANDRA, after the well-known Massanda Winery, and the abbreviation decoded as: "Mikoyan Artyom, Syn Armyanskogo Naroda, Dal Radost Aviatoram" - Mikoyan Artyom (the M in MiG), Son of Armenian People (he was Armenian), Gave Joy to the Aviators.
Just about the same story with the Tu-22, being nick named the "flying booze carrier". Instead of de-ice it was the air conditioning though.
My favorite fuel is the fuel in that orange tank, they said it wasn’t orange flavored but they lied
They said the tank itself didn't taste like an orange, not the fuel.
External Tang!
The Forbidden Tang
@@negirno That one made me laugh. Nice one mate.
Drink safe
"drink & fly safe" Lolololl
no
Speech: *inset number of likes on saas’ comment*
Reminds me, at university there was a joke that the definition of "evaporation allowance" on stored ethanol was "how much lab alcohol the technicians can consume in a year". LOL
That number being somewhere over 100% i assume?
LOL
Was a prpblem at the laser lab too. Used to use anhydrous EtOH to clean precision laser optics. Eventually they switched over to methanol because of it. 😅
So they added a "purgative" to the rocket fuel to prevent people drinking it?
I bet that resulted in some...........
*drum roll*
EXPLOSIVE INCIDENTS!
*brum-tish*
Take my wife.
You should have mentioned the MiG-21's radar that was cooled by alcohol. There are stories that Soviet aircraft were often grounded because the alcohol had been consumed by the airfield personnel.
lmao that gave me a giggle
Hydraulic systems in tanks, too, I think I've read somewhere.
I thought Viktor Belenko told the opposite story -- they had plenty of coolant, but no fuel. What's a pilot to do?
That is when you pull a bate and switch and put methanol in
@@noname-wo9yy Then you end up with blind air crews. Or ones with distilleries. It's best to turn a, um, blind eye here.
the talk between the engineering and other departments for filling the rocked with Vodka for a load-test must have been great:
engineer: "Sir, we need 15 railcars of vodka"
projectleader: " are you drunk?"
engineer: "No, we need it to do a load-test of the rocket".
projectleader: "and what do we do with that after the test? We can't just throw it away"
Engineer: "We got some friends we can invite"
projectleader: " are you drunk?"
Engineer: "not yet, but after the loadtest i'll be, im quite sure of that. Dimitry said some lines have "leaks" in them and we cant waste such nice, fresh Vodka-esque liquid, right?"
Jokes aside, on some USSR planes coolant for electronics was alcohol solution almost like vodka in percentage (called Massandra in honor of famous winery). People in charge of those systems were very respected, of course...
A well lubricated space program you have there, comrad.
ABaumstumpf ha
projectleader: " are you drunk?"
engineer: "yes but that's irrelevant"
US: Literally any kind of fuel you want
Russia: *_V O D K A_*
*germany
"They don't make it as they used to"
Damn good phrase
"We had some very happy sailors while that program was going on " :D
Ebumbaya ' John D. Clark is, as always, the best.
Does this make bartenders rocket scientists?
I'm thinking along the lines of rocket chemists to be exact
good thing we all use the internet to watch tv
as a bartender yes yes it dose
Perhaps it makes rocket scientists bartenders
If a bartender ever makes a rocket engine out of a bottle and some vodka, I will drink from that bar for the rest of my life
Now I know why sometimes powerful alcohol is called rocket fuel. Thanks Manley Scott's man
Correlation is not causation
Michael Farrell however, in this case it is! So don’t be so quick to correct, when you yourself are really just guessing as you most definitely didn’t know for certain. In any case, it isn’t the biggest leap of logic, for which a simple SearchEngine enquiry confirms the Pittsburgh origins of this expression!
Michael Farrell Regardless if it was or not I only left the comment to say Manly Scott's man
Umm.... no it's not... Rewatch the video and CAREFULLY read what has been said here, people from all over the world referring to alcohol as 'rocket fuel' has nothing to do with this video or the particular stories Scott is referring too.... Don;t be so quick to correct ;)
I'd also point out that UrbanDictionary.com is not a reliable source for factual information, not that the information you presented from there had anything to do with what I said... I'm somewhat confused as to your position though as if you believe the origins of the term are from Pittsburgh then you are AGREEING with me....
When I was younger, I drank a shot of the 95% stuff to win a bet. It immediately wanted to climb back out again, but eventually was persuaded to stay down. And after that, drinks was free that night. . . and that's pretty much all I remember of that night.
Good stuff.
I bought a bottle of ever clear for the fuck of it. Tried a few swigs; people say alcohol burns going down, but this was ridiculous. However, after the first swig, they became progressively easier. I don't remember much of that night; I just remember waking up the next morning, and my mom asking me why my clothes are all over the floor near the laundry room and the washer has peanuts in it... Fuck if I know. Lol
It was the summer of 2011. A couple of friends and I spent our vacation in Italy. Two of them made the 900km trip on 50cc "mopeds" and complained about engine difficulties after facing heavy rain in the Alpes. In an attempt to absorb possible water in the fuel tank, a bottle of 95% drinking alcohol was bought - but not filled into the tanks right away...
Fast forward to late in the evening, when we are sitting on the balcony. Chatting, drinking, smoking, all casual and relaxed, while some of the other guys, without anyone paying too much attention, start messing around with the stuff, you know. Using pieces of tinfoil to shape tiny cups, pouring a litte ethanol in there and lighting it on fire. And then, in the space of maybe 5 seconds, everything went to complete shit.
The tinfoil starts to melt, burning liquid slowly runs across the crooked plastic table. Without even thinking, our little pyro tries to blow the fire out, but actually sends the stuff flying off the table, where it hits another guy - and that guy was (of course) the one holding that very bottle of ethanol. Guy freaks out, drops the damn thing, glass bottle hits the tiled floor and in the blink of an eye, two pints worth of industrial grade ethanol goes up in flames.
Before I even knew what happened, everything in my field of view was a fucking inferno. Literally the entire balcony was on fire and there we were, some more than others, standing (bare foot) right in a pool of blazing fluid riddled with glass shards. Fun times!
Huh! Alcohol is for the weak. I drink hydrazine!
Omer Magen hydrazine is for the weak I drink mercury
cyanide?
...i drink aluminum powder
Weaklings! I drink chlorine trifluoride.
And they say dead mean tell no tales.
Finally my family will listen to me again when I start rambling about rockets!
I took a shot of straight Everclear once. Not my best decision. But I did end up somewhere around lunar orbit.
I chugged Absinthe and woke on a respirator....
Imagine being addicted to the stuff! Worst withdrawals ever
Everclear is evil.
straight Everclear makes you forget you have sore throat.
Kewl
A biologist mate told me a story once about a guy that was supposed to store a whale fetus in a tank. He gained permission to obtain several thousand liters of high-grade alcohol to keep the fetus from decomposing. Years later, it was discovered that the liquid in the tank was in fact formaldehyde.
Sad fact: they discovered the switcheroo when a post-doc died from formaldehyde poisoning after a night of heavy partying that included a dare to chug whale-fetus-infused vodka.
@TheDerpy Kittybecause he sells propane and propane accessories
What's a good mixer for that? There must be some named recipes sitting around some bars.
@@julienguieu5636 "Nantucket Slay Ride"
@@Legitpenguins99 Say hwat?
How to extract alcohol from propellant - russian rocket science :)
Actually it was German
The soviets copied the V-2 originally. Issues caused by human consumption caused them to change the fuel for their later V-2-derivatives.
funny a lot
So good to know, If one becomes stranded on another planet with just an oxygen liquifier and a bunch of copper pipe. Distill your own go juice from local plants.
This was a plot point in Heinlein’s “Space Cadet”. The heroes are stranded on Venus (it had a temperate climate then, © 1948) and plan on distilling alcohol as fuel for their getaway rocket. Until they manage to ask the Venusians, who provide the Alcohol and LOX for them.
Only if you have yeast starters with you...
I've worked in labs for a while and ethyl never lasted long we've since switched to isopropyl for some reason that seems to last a lot longer.
i've had a story of a teacher showing how to neutralise alkali metals. the neutralisation was a lot more spectacular than he expected.
Water?
yes they were diluting the alcohol with water
gavin kemp damn students hahaha. That would have sucked for them though getting busted by a alkali metal.
We use ethanol on cars here in brazil.
Rocket engineer to bartender: "I've burned more alcohol in 30 seconds than you ever pushed across this lousy bar!" That's a steely-eyed missile man!
Who on earth figured out how to filter out the dye via a potato?
A rocket scientist probably.
Well it is the kind of ingenuity that would get you into space
@@lewismassie Agree
Astronaut gets pulled over for swerving
Cop, you been drinking sir??
Astronaut, I had a beer or two but my rocket, my rocket is completely smashed
Funfact: this video used have the title "Drinking Rocket Fuel Is A Bad Idea" when it was published :)
you are a little norbert :)
Don't drink hydrazine. I have no idea what it tastes like, and those who do are dead.
A couple years ago I took a tour of a Balao class submarine by one of the few remaining museum docents who is an actual WW2 naval veteran. He told us a bit about the torpedoes, and how the American torpedoes at the start of the war had many problems. One of the problems was that they had engines that burned compressed oxygen, available on the submarines' compressed gasses vessels, and ethanol. Seems many of the submariners would drain some of the ethanol torpedo fuel to consume as hooch. That led to regular occurences of torpedoes not reaching their targets on long shots.
The Germans typically kept a case of Bier on board their subs, and the captains would give the OK to consume it when they were less than a day out from their return to port, to celebrate surviving a mission.
During the later years of the war the US Navy started to put formaldehyde in the torpedo fuel. But the sailors figured out how to filter that out eventually.
Thanks to Joe at the NJ Naval Museum!
My experimental rocket motor ran on propane fuel and compressed air. I has propane for the heating torch and a sizable air tank and compressor. I injected the Air from the end of the combustion chamber and the propane from a central post. The test procedure was to start the propane and light it as it came out of the nozzle then add air until the unburned cone retreated into the motor. Then add more air until it roared most Impressively. The test ended when the Air ran out.
I was happy that it sort of worked but dissapointed it was an complex weed burner but not a rocket engine. This happened 60 years ago when I was 14. Other lesson never let a curious kid alone in a machine shop filled with tools he knows how to operate. Great fun.
"Dont just actually drink rocket fuel, They dont make it liked they used to" - Scott Manley 2018
I ahve been watching your vids for some time now.... and well. I found them Interesting Educational and Entertaining. Subbed :P
the really nasty ones are the hypergolics - Hydrazine (and its derivatives) and Nitrogen Tetroxide - every time I see the old films of the hyperbolic engine fires, I cringe when I see the orange smoke - I think the Triton used fior Gemini was burning hyperbolic's..... ..... Alcohol is actually pretty tame in comparison. I still love to watch the firings of the Saturn F1 engine, which burned RP-1 - kerosene...lots and lots of kerosene and oxidized with Liquid Oxygen (lots and lots of it) - tons per second per engine. I love your videos - sanity in the youtube swamp - thank you
you know a heck of a lot for a girl
@@lolbots Have you considered deleting your account? I think you should give it a thought.
I'm especially glad they're using something that represents vodka and not wasting quality scotch for these rockets! :)
Passing reference to biofuels reminded me of butanol as a petrol substitute. No engine modifications required (same octane rating more or less) and lower volatility/flammability/explosion risk.
Makes me wonder what other alcohols have been tried...
When I busted up my spine and could not go back to sea I got into distilling vodka (it's legal here in NZ). Strange hobby for a non drinker to get into. I was just fascinated with the process and trying to get a pure vodka with no discernible aftertastes. Family liked it and especially liked the one I would soak in cinnamon sticks. I did not feel right about supplying vodka to people so quit. Now I have gallons of fairly decent vodka sitting in my living room in five liter bottles. it's everclear strength because I do not dilute until I deiade what kind of spring water I want to try (and because i would also make lemone celllo). This video gives me ideas for new uses for my vodka still. Make a rocket! Move over Rocket Labs. There's a new player in town. I would have to be a bit more careful this time. last time I was about 8 years old and tried to make a rocket in my back garden using two stroke lawn mower fuel. Set myself on fire and jumped in the big concrete monstrosity pond mt step dad had made. .
I don't remember the source now, but I heard that the Soviets had issues with their R-1 (Basically a straight V2 clone, with changes so it could actually be manufactured by soviet industry at the time. Turbopumps are finicky.) rocket.
It apparently literally "fell short", but not by a consistent amount. The story was that once they figured out that the issue was the troops drinking some of the propellant, that was fixed in that the R-2 uses methanol.
Björn Augustsson really?
I did some searching. It's mentioned in several places ( www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/R/R_series.html , www.astronautix.com/v/v-2.html , nerdfighteria.info/v/YQfy5u3yOZQ/ )
And than soldeirs started going blind...
Too bad you didn't talk about the BPM5 made by Copenhagen Suborbitals, nice alcohol rocket engine!
We don't talk about Copenhagen Suborbitals...
This guy said it ^^
"We don't talk about Copenhagen Suborbitals..."
Why is that? What did I miss?
Because a few years back some of the members stole it from the founder and did nothing with it for several years. Only past year have they started back up but only doing smaller tests then before with no solid plans for manned flight.
You have no clue what you are talking about...search up their channel and theres a video currently 5 days ago about plans on the spica manned rocket. Peter madsen is who alendandre is talking about
It's not that people used to drink rocket fuel, is that rocket fuel used to be something that people drink.
Scott, word was that torpedoes used in American submarines in WW2 used ethyl alcohol which was occasionally appropriated to fuel crew celebrations.
Now, I don't know whether there was any truth to such rumors, but it makes for some interesting sea stories!
I nearly spat out my own alcohol when you said "Passing it through a potato". Some Chris Morris worthy stuff right there.
Lest we forget, I served on submarines out of San Diego and can offer some insights into the consumption of torpedo alcohol. Some torpedos used alcohol as a fuel and the alcohol was also consumed by the sailors who faithfully served. We called it torpedo-alcohol, or "Gilley." We survived, hahaha
The air quotes around "gasoline" slayed me.
As one who drank ever clear straight, I imagine the rocket fuel went down quite smoothly in comparison.
I wouldn't suggest doing either.
AYE Scott your videos are great, I watch everyday; hilarious intellectual content is my forte'. But I need you to answer a question for me. Can you create a plasma by heating a solid fuel/liquid fuel under a lava rock. then melting it down with the combustible fluids intact. Allowing the form of the three bodies combined become the 4th, Plasma?
I remember stories from Soviet AF members talking about drinking the alcohol intended for aircraft de-icing and cooling.
Has anyone used alcohol in a large modern rocket engine? I mean one where the fuel and oxidizer is also used to drive the fuel pumps unlike the V2 and Redstone where the fuel pumps were driven by a separate system using hydrogen peroxide.
Why would anyone use alcohol in a modern rocket?
One uses what one has... I was mostly thinking of Brazil since they use ethanol as fuel to a large extent. Might be cheaper than the highly refined RP-1 too.
Well, for starters, you can distil alcohol from pretty much anything that grows. I've heard that in some distant rural areas of Russia they even manage to make it out of saw dust.
I'm not surprised if SpaceX has an ethanol-LOX engine in the pipeline as a future R&D project because ethanol is a perfect bio-fuel. The liquid methane they're using for the BFR is produced from petroleum where bio-ethanol is not.
Yes brazil is developing a small 75kn ethanol engine because it's so cheap
Drink Rocket fuel? This seems something a Kerbal would do, sounds stupid enough
My aunt told me story from my grandfather. He's usually was silent about WWII but sometimes told creepy stories. He was in soviet army. Once they passed beside some factory and there was cisterns with spirits inside. One soldier fill up some canister and moved with it somewhere this soldier was stopped by some soviet "officer" he checked what's inside and shoot out this soldier....
Actually I've never think about that from such perspective why there was so many alcohol in one place maybe it was simply to clear electronics connections but maybe for rockets who knows...
Running out of olives.....:"Houston, we have a problem..hic"
Love Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography in the background. Good book!
gregg4 Good call. Saw that too. :-)
but i always wanted to make a vodka+RP1 cocktail
דורון פדר while you're at it add a Red bull
and some NOS for the effect boost
Vodka+RP1 wouldn't mix. That said, layered cocktails would be no problem at all.
than i can use a straw and drink the vodka :)
They mix methanol in it, so you can't go around alcohol taxations
That killed a lot of people in the USA. So many tried to distill the methanol out, but they couldn't. That's where most of the "went blind" from drinking home brew alcohol came from, they were distilling the denatured stuff. It still kills people to this day.
Back when EU made it allowed to sell methanol in grocery stores, it created problems is Finland where methanol wasn't allowed in normal stores because drunks would buy it and go blind or die. When told, EU didn't believe them and said that no one would do that because the containers clearly said "don't drink".
Add water, distill off and discard the methanol. Repeat until no more methanol remains. Salt out the water. Distill until your desired purity is reached.
just using sugar and yeast, have it ferment then distill is easier and safe.
Yes, criminals has done stuff like that for sale as its cheaper and easier to do in scale, green gasoline with high alcohol content is an modern favorite.
@@magnemoe1 thing with methanol is: you can get that by fermentation, too. Actually, you usually do. And if you do not 100% know what you do, or your gear is just a little finicky, or you are to greedy and don´t cut off enough of the pre-run, you get that into your booze and go blind.
I'm not stupid! But I'll cop to poor judgement.
Well done and informative video as always. I love what you've been doing with your channel lately. All us KSP fans are finally learning a thing or two about real rocket science!
Great information. I recently added ethanol to a turbo S2000 I built. I had to install larger fuel injectors and a more powerful fuel pump but the car made around 50 more horsepower than 93 octane on the first dyno session. On such a light car, it made a very noticeable difference. The biggest difference is felt in the lower RPM range with the increase in torque. I have a short video uploaded to TH-cam. I really enjoyed learning about the history of ethanol in this video and how it was used as rocket fuel. This is something I’ll certainly think about while driving around on ethanol fuel.
Glad you mentioned the lower MW that water contributes in alcohol but off ratio,i.e. rich burning hydrocarbon fuels also lowers MW by having more free unburnt H2 in the exhaust plus lowering flame temp. And yes Germany had little to no crude oil of their own so potato fermented ethanol was the obvious choice. Ironically pure ammonia used in the X-15 performs as well as kerosene but is transported as a non-flammable gas because of its extremely narrow flammability range. As always I love your great videos Scott. Thank you, Ken
Alcohol as rocket propellant actually goes back to the 16th century, not just WW2. Look up Conrad Haas and pálinka. ;)
"man, this vodka is so good, i almost feel like i'm in space!"
Aaah good old times. I heard you can't do it anymore with this new stuff Hydrazine. Gives you terrible hangover with side effects like death.
I got to play with World War II torpedoes, while crewing on a restored PT Boat some years ago.
The Mark 12 and Mark 14 torpedoes were on destroyers,subs, and most warships in the U.S. Navy in WWII.
They were powered by an ethanol based liquid fueled steam turbine.
My dad was in the Navy in World War II and described how sailor' s would drink the "torpedo juice",as they called the alcohol they took from the torpedoes.
The Navy got fed up and put a foul tasting colored chemical in the fuel, to stop the practice, lol.
The sailors responded by taking a loaf of bread, cutting the ends off the loaf and poured the torpedo fuel through the bread
end wise top to bottom.
The bread filtered the chemical out of the alcohol and gave it a pink color.
Reportedly the cocktail called a "pink lady" came from this process.
Better living through chemistry.
Now I understand why rocket development is so slow, drunk engineers!
"I'm Scott Manley...fly sake!"
Wow I always thought everclear was rocket fuel, i guess I was wrong it's stronger!
I've def consumed my fair share of everclear.... not recommended.
You, sir, are a master storyteller.
Wish you would quit that pesky day-job of yours and spend even more time enlightening and entertaining the rest of us.
The place I used to work got a variety of coffee in k-cups, including one called "Jet Fuel" featuring a stylized SR-71.
It is so when you fart you are propelled up.
huh, so the v2 was powered by bacardi 151. i have literally drunk rocket fuel. nice.
so is this where we get the saying that "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker"?
ie you get more specific impulse (& a lot less smoke) from booze + O2 than solid stage sugar + potassium nitrate :P
Nope. The phrase comes from wooing a woman. Candy she will enjoy and may win you her affections over time. Liquor will get her sloshed and she'll be willing alot sooner.
What's an "alot"?
Alot of information here: hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.de/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html
So if you tune your engine to run on 75.5% alcohol, you can just substitute Bacardi 151 XD
id highly advise against that since it would quickly clog up the injectors. Go with Everclear or other water diluted alcohols.
@@Flowxing, right.
Too much sugar in rum.
steve
Reminds me of something I heard of a N2O-ethanol mix being used for some small rockets, nicknamed "party fuel" as both are sometimes used as intoxicants.
gold
Hahaha! Well-lubricated rocket programs!
Alcohol as rocket fuel?
Ivan, bring zi VODKA!
That was the funniest video to date. Thank you, Scott, I laughed the whole video. :) So crazy!
Saw one of the V2 engines a few weeks ago in Technikmuseum
(technology museum) Berlin
Well, I went down on 31st street to pick up a jug of alcohol
told the man to put in some water
but he wouldn't put in a drop at all
one hundred percent alcohol - now let me have some
-- rory gallagher, irish astronaut
100% alcohol is a theoretical substance, in practice the top value is 98% (lab grade), and 95% (medical grade)
My friend’s father or uncle had learned how to safely drink jet fuel. He filtered jet fuel through many loaves of bread, leaving just alcohol. He was in the navy and was quickly discharged.
151 proof rum, is quite close to the 75/25%
A4 fuel. I would NOT burn it in a rocket,
because it does have some residual sugars
in it.
steve
"i dunno what'r ye talking about sir. This is some fine alcohol we got these days." *Chugs a pint of RP-1*
Consider we are Stone Age in celestial propulsion schemes and it boils down to two equations explaining a common UFO behavior too simply to ignore.
Fg = mass1•mass2/d²
Fq = charge1•charge2/d
With d equal, charge is exponentially stronger a force than gravity, so, using charge not thrust is how to traverse space.
Consider how simply vertical acceleration is explained by one of the masses at the surface caused by reluctance in the minerals.
Zap a zillion volt plasma between them you take off from repulsion, a key difference ... easy to model.
Ymmv.
Awesome as usual. The "natural" laugh ate the end should be a trade mark from now on, please consider that! hahahahah, t´was really nice! Keep the good work!
Soviet era advanced fighter jets used nearly pure ethanol in the hydraulic systems- according to Viktor Belenko, a Mig-Pilot who escaped USSR flying his fighter at wavetop level across the Sea of Japan to a Civilian Airport in the 1970s. He said the aircraft frequently had to be pulled from the flight line because of ground crew tippling. Don't know if any of that has carried over to Federation flight ops.
So I've been arguing against converting US corn crops to alcohol as an additive to gasoline, for many reasons. One was that I keep reading that a given mass of ethanol has only 2/3 the available chemical energy compared to a similar mass of gasoline. That is, _one gallon of gasoline has the energy of _*_one-and-one-half gallons_*_ of ethanol._ As I recall, the entire point that was used to *_sell_* the program was just to demonstrate that "renewable" plant-derived fuel could run vehicles, and we weren't limited to petroleum products, that will someday disappear. But with crop subsidies to pals of Congresscritters this has become a permanent unchallengeable program that will outlast Cockroaches.
Meanwhile every step of Corn-based ethanol-in-gasoline has a number of _infelicitous consequences_: raises the price and reduces availability of corn worldwide, hurting the people with the least ability to find alternatives; Every Single Step of the process uses a lot of energy - plowing, planting, cultivating, pest & weed control, harvesting, shelling, transport, fermenting, distilling, transport to the refining/blending facilities, then distribution.
For all that cost and labor, let's DRINK the stuff, not Burn it! >;0)
Russian submarine crews used to syphon off the ethanol fuel from earlier torpedoes. During one inspection it was found that none of a vessels torpedoes were functional due to this habit.
hahaha! this is hilarious I never realized that they were similar concentrations!
Huh... so this explains the "drinking rocket fuel" thing on old sci-fi movies like "Forbidden Planet" and "Moon Zero Two". I was always confused by that because I was more familiar with the kerosene and hydrazine based rocket fuels, and you really don't want to drink those.
I worked as a Temp at DAW in Salt Lake in the early 2000s bonding clean room panels. We had to wipe down the aluminum panels with pure ethanol, lay down a thermoadhesive sheet, then a honeycomb, another glue sheet & the top aluminum sheet then bake it for a few minutes.
Everybody came out of there every night with a BAC level above DWI. They were closed when I came back a couple years ago.
Seems somebody stole a copy of "Oracle" (not gonna get far with that)
Funny how the Tu-22 was called the "flying booze carrier" because of the execive amount of alcohol the air conditioning had in its tank. Pilots and ground crew alike would be hammered out of their minds because of it very frequently.
Edit: Heck it became an unofficial currency it was so common for all aircraft types.
Actually legitimate chemists say 'gasoline' because that's a specific term where 'petrol' (short for petroleum) means any given hydrocarbon in liquid conditions. The Spanish speaking world calls it 'gasolina.' Germans call it 'Benzin' after Karl Benz invented the gasoline engine.