• Question: what will happen if you set fire in space not in the space station what will happen

    Asked by oliver samways to Vinita, Kirsty, Col Op, Charlie 🚀, Andrea on 22 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by mini_astronaut22.
    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 22 Jun 2016:

      Great physics question!
      Discovery have a good video of how flames burn in space:

    • Photo: Charles Laing

      Charles Laing answered on 22 Jun 2016:

      Hi oliver samways,

      Great video Kirsty! …and yes this is what fire would look like on the Space Station because inside there is the same atmosphere as here on Earth but with microgravity.

      If you were to try and create a fire in space it depends what you are trying to burn. In order to burn something you need oxygen so if it was done in the vacuum of space (and no oxygen source) nothing would happen!

      Charlie 🚀

    • Photo: Andrea Boyd

      Andrea Boyd answered on 23 Jun 2016:

      We just set a giant fire on board an old spacecraft a few days ago to experiment exactly that!!

      http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-ignites-fire-experiment-aboard-space-cargo-ship

      Fire needs three things to exist: Heat, Oxygen and Combustibles (Flammable Material). So in space itself there can never be fire because you are missing two (or sometimes all three) of the three sides of the fire triangle.
      I did Fire Engineering as an elective speciality at university: little known thing to note for fires on Earth- you should never break a window or open a door of a building that has been on fire and now looks like the fire is finished – often it has just run out of oxygen so it will explode if you open a window/door.

Comments