A one room fire at SpaceX
A fire broke out in a battery room at SpaceX’s California facility yesterday, injuring no one.
Though the article suggests the fire was not significant, it is also gives no details.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
A fire broke out in a battery room at SpaceX’s California facility yesterday, injuring no one.
Though the article suggests the fire was not significant, it is also gives no details.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Mmm, the absence of details is indeed a little annoying. Also, don’t get me wrong, I like what SpaceX is doing, but I feel this is once again a good time to point out that just because Lithium is the flashy new thing in battery technology, doesn’t make it the best. Given the lack of details I can’t say if this was an electrical fire or a battery fire. If they are indeed using lithium ion batteries at their plant, which I assume they would given SpaceX likes to deal only with the new and flashy, this fire was likely a battery fire and could have been very dangerous as lithium is highly flammable and the electrolyte used in Lion batteries is an oxidzer.
Battery fires with older older/less energy dense technologies such as Nickel Iron, Lead Acid or even Litium Iron Phosphate are virtually unheard of, especially with LiFe batteries as they are designed for safety. Again, it’s all an assumption on my part as to what fire might have been given the lack of details, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to alert people to the safer battery chemistries out there. Just because Lithium Ion is one of the most energy dense, does not make it the best in all applications.
Gealon–
Thanks for the clarification on ‘batteries.’ –I have trouble keeping track of which versions are subject to “spontaneous combustion.”
slight tangent–
Are those solar-panels on top of the factory?
(Musk is having trouble convincing his Board, to go forth with the takeover of his cousin’s solar-panel company.)
I worked at a place that had a couple of electrical fires in the course of a month. The first was ground support cabling near the connectors at the spacecraft (fire did not reach the spacecraft); they had been mishandled, arced, and the insulation caught fire. Later, an electrical rack caught fire. That was a bad month, but we got the fires out using fire extinguishers only (and cutting power), no one was injured, and no hazardous materials response was required.