ABSTRACT
The Hindenburg film played to full houses in many countries; its fascination can perhaps be explained by the notion that the Hindenburg represented an archetypal disaster of high technology—the Titanic was another—that received full media coverage. Hydrogen burns mixed with air over a much wider range than methane or gasoline, for instance. The hydrogen flame is almost invisible in daylight, and it travels much faster than a methane flame. The energy radiated from fires pools of liquid hydrogen and liquid methane of the same area and volume would be nearly identical because the lower emissivity of hydrogen is offset by the more rapid rate of combustion. Jack R. Lippert explains the difference in hydraulic behavior by the fact that liquid hydrogen is only about one-tenth as dense as the petroleum-based fuel. Like any fuel, hydrogen has some dangerous properties, but it also possesses quite forgiving characteristics.
