Yeah, Pinky and the Brain are at it again... this time ("Rocketmen") with gummy-bear rockets. Or not.
The first round almost made sense... until it turned out that, in addition to the experimental fuel grains, they were using an entire unproven hybrid-rocket system, so there were far too many variables, and no knowledge was gathered. Also, they hadn't bothered doing small-scale static tests in the bunker back at the shop before going full-scale out in the desert. So, neither good science nor good engineering.
Then, they had custom APCP fuel grains made up: one with dry, powdered extract of gummy bears, and one with dry, powdered extract of dog poop. Um, okay. Issue: surely a better test would use the gummy bears as both fuel and binder? But I guess they had to work with the existing process. Which leads us to:
What was the composition of the resulting propellant? Was the alternative "fuel" simply substituted for the usual dry, powdery ingredient (i.e., aluminum) in a typical 70/15/15 mix, giving 70% AP, 15% "fuel" and 15% binder-which-is-also-fuel?
They had a control rocket with the standard composition; I submit that there should have been a far-end control, in which the "fuel" was some inert material, such as sand, leaving just the oxidizer and binder reacting. My suspicion is that it would have had nearly the performance of the dog-poop rocket.*
Sheesh. Maybe post-move I can have a YouTube show seriously looking at the science behind the stuff that's been flubbed on Mythbusters. More thinky, less splodey.
* Afterthought: Maybe they should also have tried a plant-based renewable biofuel. Dried, powdered hemp, maybe. See how high the rocket can get on that.
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