[defrost]

Well, you've almost convinced me.

One quick question though, what was the "powder" used on, say, the Apollo missions?

I've always heard the Saturn V launch had a J-2 liquid propellant rocket engine that used used liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.

[Dalewyn]

Obviously I'm saying "boom powder" as a generic and funny term for the various fuels used in rocketry. They can be liquids (RP-1, liquid hydrogen, liquid methane, various hypergolics like UDMH, etc.) or solids (eg: solid rocket boosters, most military missiles and rockets).

The Saturn V used RP-1 and liquid oxygen for the first stage, and liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for the second and third stages. The Apollo CSM used dinitrogen tetroxide and "Aerozine 50", a 50:50 mix of hydrazine and UDMH hypergolic fuels that was originally used for the Titan II ICBM.

Further reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_command_and_service_mod...

[defrost]

Sure .. from my PoV I can live with "powder" it's the "boom" that rankles.

Relatively slow controlled energy release for thrust isn't particularly evoked by the word BOOM!!

Otherwise simplifying rockets and missiles as they are today to tubes of slow release thrust (with some additional wrinkles such as side thrust | directional thrust to 'balance' load over thrust, multi stages, etc) seems innocent enough.