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EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP – Six people at the U.S. Air National Guard’s 177th Fighter Wing were taken to the hospital as a precaution Thursday after being exposed to a chemical released from a fighter plane’s emergency power system. Master Sgt. Andrew J. Moseley said the accident happened around 2:30 p.m. Thursday when personnel were working on the F-16’s Emergency Power Unit, which as its name suggests provides electrical and hydraulic power to the aircraft if the engines shut down. The six people were taken to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, Mainland Campus, as a precaution because of possible exposure to a...

I know never to mix cleaners and to certainly never mix ammonia and chlorine but many cleaners contain ammonium chloride. Is this not essentially ammonia and chlorine? If not, how does it differ? If it is similar, what is done to it so it doesn't kill the user? I am obviously not a chemist and have merely an nodding acquaintance with the periodic table, so I would ask that your explanations be simplified as much as possible, as Einstein said, "As simple as possible but no simpler." Thanks

Propellants offer satellites greater efficiency and lower toxicity than liquid hydrazine. It looks like chardonnay, smells like glass cleaner and packs enough punch to shift a satellite. It is a Swedish-made ‘green propellant’, one that is fast becoming a viable fuel for manoeuvring craft in orbit. Along with a US-made propellant, it is providing an attractive alternative to hydrazine, the toxic chemical that has dominated this corner of the space industry for decades. The Swedish propellant is currently nudging a satellite around in space, and may be used in a constellation of small commercial Earth-imaging satellites. The US-made fuel will...

Scientists on Sunday said they had gained insights into a remarkable bacterium that lives without oxygen and transforms ammonium, the ingredient of urine, into hydrazine, a rocket fuel. So-called anammox -- for anaerobic ammonium oxidation -- germs caused a sensation when they were first identified in the 1990s, but uncovering their secrets is taking time. In a letter published by the British science journal Nature, researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands reported they had identified the molecular mechanism by which the bugs do their fuel-trick. "Proving this was quite a feat," said Mike Jetten, professor of microbiology at...

The technology and tools already exist to allow people and robots to repair and refuel satellites in orbit. What is lacking is the recognition of that capability by senior government officials and a business model to enable commercial companies to profit from the enterprise, according to government and industry officials attending a workshop March 24-26 sponsored by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and held at the University of Maryland University College in Adelphi, Md. “It’s pretty clear,” said Frank Cepollina, NASA deputy associate director in the space service capabilities office at NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, Md. “The time for...

In the movie "Armageddon," Bruce Willis and company jury-rig a nuclear bomb in spectacular seat-of-their pants fashion to break up a colossal asteroid before it hits the Earth and kills everything but the cockroaches. In real life, the United States military pulled off a slightly less ambitious mission -- shooting down a dying spy satellite late Wednesday -- but for similar stakes, the elimination of a threat to human life posed by 1,000 lbs. of deadly rocket fuel on board the crippled bird. Or so the official story line goes. A U.S. Navy Aegis cruiser, the Lake Erie, launched an...

Monday's false alarm anthrax scare at three Pentagon letter-processing centers served as a reminder of the October 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five persons and remain unsolved. Investigators have made no arrests and have named no suspects in the 31/2-year-old probe into who sent the anthrax letters to senate offices on Capitol Hill and media outlets in Florida and New York. But authorities, who say they are still devoting more than 1,000 man-hours per week to the investigation, said there's no statute of limitations on murder so it's unlikely the probe will end because of a lack of leads. "We...

THREE STAFF TAKEN ILL Police are checking one of BP's offices in Moscow after three female workers fell ill when they opened a bag of letters. Officers in the Russian capital said the employees "got sore throats, their eyes watered and one of them got red spots on her skin". A police spokesman added: "They packed the letters back in the bag and called emergency workers and chemical experts, who are now studying the letters." Russia's Emergencies Ministry said it had sent experts to BP's oil trading office. It was not clear what caused the employees to feel ill. But...

June 4 — By Gilles Castonguay BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian investigators found a nerve gas ingredient in letters addressed to the Belgian prime minister's office, and the U.S., British and Saudi Arabian embassies, officials said on Wednesday. Two postal workers were briefly hospitalized after being exposed to the chemicals. The brownish-yellow powder contained phenarsazine chloride, an arsenic derivative used in nerve gas, as well as hydrazine, an agent used as a rocket propellant, said Health Ministry spokeswoman Anne-Francoise Gally said. In the amounts contained in the letters, the two chemicals are not life threatening, but can cause irritation to the...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian prosecutors said on Thursday they had detained a man of Iraqi nationality after a series of letters containing a nerve gas ingredient were sent to the prime minister's office and the U.S. and British embassies. A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office told a news conference the 45-year-old man was arrested late on Wednesday in the western Belgian town of Deinze. Two postal workers were taken to hospital after being exposed to the chemicals in the letters at mail depots. No one else was hurt by the 10 letters sent to a variety of targets, including...