At least, not traditionally burn -- flames spiking, sparks flaring -- according to Indrek Wichman. Wichman knows something about flames in zero gravity. The associate professor of mechanical engineering at Michigan State University is working with a grant from NASA to understand how flames behave in zero gravity.

Knowing how fires grow and spread is essential to safety in spacecraft. Real life has little to do with the fiery flash and dazzle of a Darth Maul space battle.

Fire in zero gravity, Wichman says, is a lot subtler. And more unpredictable.

"A fire in microgravity usually burns slower, but the limits of flammability sometimes can be wider," he said. "A fire can quietly and slowly burn and spread to the point of disaster."

By burning everything from petrol to paper to Plexiglas, Wichman is working to understand the combustion process: where on the spacecraft it is considered most dangerous, where it might spread the fastest, what kinds of gases -- toxic or otherwise -- it would release. From the data he collects Wichman, a theoretician, will create a comprehensive model to help predict the behavior of flames under a variety of atmospheric conditions.

Creating fire in zero gravity for research means MSU scientists will travel to NASA's Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. There, Ph.D. student Lisa Oravecz places strips of paper in a chamber in the NASA drop tower that plummets 145 meters -- about the height of the Washington Monument -- in 5 seconds. The plunge creates gravity-free conditions. Scientists film the burn in that time and take other measurements with on-board computers.

The results show flames that undulate rather than spike and break off into what researchers have dubbed "flamelets," or miniature flames.

Wichman explained that without gravity, heat no longer rises. The characteristic upward rush of oxygen disappears, as does the spike of yellow flame.

Instead, fire in zero gravity looks like a blue blob, more akin to droplets of mercury rather than a forest fire.

"We're looking at these flamelets -- how they break up and move around and how they generally behave," Wichman said. "Virtually everything you instinctively know about fire is different in zero gravity."

MSU's project is one of eight from this funding round to go up on the International Space Station, a collaborative venture of 16 nations, sometime after the year 2005.

Meanwhile, Wichman is eager to watch the newest Star Wars film -- he'll just have a little irony with his popcorn. Explosions in outerspace can't really spark and flame, he notes, because there's no oxygen to fuel a blaze. "The moment of explosion would be simultaneous with the moment of extinction," he said.

And a fire in zero gravity? Wichman argues that the blue blob approach could catch on. "Maybe George Lucas needs another engineer," Wichman said, "Scientific research could give moviegoers both starlets and flamelets."

MicroGravity News - SpaceDaily Special Report

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