Arlis —
The shuttle had two types of rocket motors, with two types of fuels, and two types of oxidants to produce either a programmed or controllable burn.
The solid rocket boosters on the side combined fuel and oxidizer in the ‘solid’ fuel molded into the tube of the booster. Absent that chemistry, there ain’t enough O2 in the upper atmosphere to burn the fuel at a rate sufficient to generate thrust. Once lit, that booster is gonna burn until the compound ‘fuel’ is exhausted.
The main motors on the shuttle could be throttled as they used both liquid fuel (I forget the name) and liquid oxygen. They could power up and power down those motors. No way to do that on the boosters.
So much for the technology discussion.
Let me go back to this — the explosions you saw in that video were typical of a gas released into a normal atmosphere. Sure there could have been some O2 released from leaking cylinders, but O2 NEVER goes boom.
NET: the title was misleading or wrong.
Liquid Hydrogen was the fuel.
http://www.space.com/11970-nasa-final-shuttle-mission-atlantis-sts135-tanking-test.html
Ok, assuming that it is agreed that adding oxygen to a fuel fire will greatly accelerate the combustion - far more than adding an equivalent amount of fuel, how about this?
The oxygen tanks upon being overheated, burst simply because the pressure limits of the tank were exceeded. Then, immediately, a humongous amount of oxygen is added to whatever fuel is already burning.
I cannot imagine that the addition of this much oxygen so suddenly to an existing fueled fire - along with the “explosion” of the bursting tank - would not simulate an explosion.
This is why liquid oxygen is used to control the rockets in the shuttle - if it were not controlled, one would have an explosion - from the oxygen accelerating the combustion of the fuel. The rocket is in essence a controlled explosion. Most of the time. Let’s do some research on what happens when liquid oxygen tanks have burst open on a failed rocket launch. I’ll bet what happened was an explosion.
Never heard of this scenario being reproduced. Maybe Mythbusters could do it.