Obviously, fire is pretty dangerous. To say fire is pretty dangerous in space, however, is a gross understatement. And that’s basically the story of why NASA decided to do some space fire tests, with a range of materials.
Lucky for us (because space fire is ridiculously cool) footage of the tests were released by NASA – and you can watch them here.
This experiment is the second in a series of three known as the “Spacecraft Fire Safety experiment”, or Saffire-II. It is made up of nine material swatches that ignited in a cargo ship as it orbits Earth.
Launching in October, Saffire-II’s nine samples include a cotton-fiberglass blend, Nomex, and the same acrylic glass that is used for spacecraft windows. After the spacecraft departed the station, and before its destructive reentry to Earth, mission controllers on the ground remotely ignited the samples on November 21.
All nine samples have now burned more than 106,000 images were captured, and here’s some of the video footage.
Isn’t space the best?