Could Starlite have saved the Shuttle?

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danwild6

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Many have heard of the insulating and fire resistant abilities of Starlite but could it have reduced or eliminated the icy foam build up that lead to the destruction of the Columbia?
 
publiusr said:
Having LFBs and flying heads up would have been better.
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Neither of those would have any difference. And why doesn't flying heads up even matter?
 
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danwild6 said:
Many have heard of the insulating and fire resistant abilities of Starlite but could it have reduced or eliminated the icy foam build up that lead to the destruction of the Columbia?
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No.
a. the capabilities and characteristics of "Starlite" are not defined enough to make a judgement.
B. The foam on the tank was insulation to maintain the propellants in a cryogenic state. It isn't a heat shield. That wasn't demonstrated for Starlite
C. If Starlite were to replace the tiles on the orbiter, it would have to weigh the same or less. But it wasn't the tiles, it was the RCC on the wing leading edge. No demonstration of that type of structure was done.
 
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Byeman said:
No.
a. the capabilities and characteristics of "Starlite" are not defined enough to make a judgement.
B. The foam on the tank was insulation to maintain the propellants in a cryogenic state. It isn't a heat shield. That wasn't demonstrated for Starlite
C. If Starlite were to replace the tiles on the orbiter, it would have to weigh the same or less. But it wasn't the tiles, it was the RCC on the wing leading edge. No demonstration of that type of structure was done.
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Could it be theoretically possible to create an insulating material that would prevent the build up of ice as a hazard?
 
danwild6 said:
Could it be theoretically possible to create an insulating material that would prevent the build up of ice as a hazard?
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In theory, sure. Of course, no such material is known to exist (with suitable thermal characteristics, weight, durability, etc.) or NASA would have used it.
 
There were allot issue with Starlite

The biggest was its inventor Maurice Ward (1933–2011)
He keep recipe secret, botch up negotiations with big corporation and took his secret with in his grave (according some sources)

NASA and Boeing in 1994 study Starlite as replacement for Shuttle heat shield
but failed because Ward outraging demands and obstinacy (according some sources).

According Keith Lewis, a retired MOD officer,
noted that the material only guards against thermal damage and not the physical damage, which can destroy the insulating layer.

in other words Starlite is fragile like Shuttle heat shield material
Also seem that Starlite can be use only once and has to be removed afterwards.
other issue was that Starlite transform into foam if heated, what could change drastic the Aerodynamic of Shuttle.

this and problems Ward caused is reason NASA never took Starlite as heat shield material...



Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlite
https://www.bbc.com/reel/playlist/searching-for-starlite?vpid=p06llpln
 
danwild6 said:
Could it be theoretically possible to create an insulating material that would prevent the build up of ice as a hazard?
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There already was. It was the existing foam that was on the External tank. That is what it was for, keep the propellant cold and keep ice of the exerior. And it did the job well. The only issue was joints and protuberances. The foam sheds. The issue is that the Orbiter tiles are not impact resistant. Almost all launch vehicle (especially ones using cryogenic propellants) create a debris shedding environment during ascent. This is not usually an issue. The problem arises with vehicles that have parallel stages or configurations with hardware next to a shedding environment.
 
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Yeah I guess the only way would to address the issue would be a titanium based structure for the orbiter and maybe a tungsten backing for the wing leading edge Carbon fiber.
 
TomS said:
In theory, sure. Of course, no such material is known to exist (with suitable thermal characteristics, weight, durability, etc.) or NASA would have used it.
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If it was possible at the time.

There a bunch of materials and Alloys that we can make now, in bulk let alone the special stuff, that the 1970s Nasa Engineers would have cheerfully Sacrifice their first and second born, Murder half their Families, and Sold both nuts for.

And while not there is no ONE material that meets the criteria... YET.

There are more than enough stuff that if they made the Shuttle today?

As in they never did in the 1970s, instead started it today?

It a completely different beast that be far, far safer even without the lessons learned from Challenger and Columbia.
 
I wonder if starlite could be made to flow through aerogel tubes.

In terms of transpiration cooling...has anyone looked at the heated working fluid doing a chemical reaction with another fluid so as to lose heat before a fresh circulation?

Lastly...say I want a sample return coming in very fast.

Any work done with ablative coatings on shuttle tiles?

To answer my own question
https://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2020/01/no-flying-brickyard-1972-1973-plan-for.html?m=1
Resources:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927796X2500230Xhttps://techxplore.com/news/2025-11-ultra-strong-lightweight-metal-composite.htmlhttps://www.spacedaily.com/m/report...eramic_foam_for_extreme_environments_999.htmlhttps://techxplore.com/news/2025-11-composite-metal-foam-safer-hazmat.html
 
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I think Starlite reusability without the need for renewal/removal/reapplication was never demonstrated, but I'd be elated to be proven wrong.
 
publiusr said:
I wonder if starlite could be made to flow through aerogel tubes.

In terms of transpiration cooling...has anyone looked at the heated working fluid doing a chemical reaction with another fluid so as to lose heat before a fresh circulation?

Lastly...say I want a sample return coming in very fast.

Any work done with ablative coatings on shuttle tiles?
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Aerogel is too frail for such tasks
no need for ablative coatings on shuttle tiles, just make the tiles thicker
 
Byeman said:
Aerogel is too frail for such tasks
no need for ablative coatings on shuttle tiles, just make the tiles thicker
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Better yet be using Titanium for the frame which would allow use of a less insulating but structurally stronger material be used in place of the Carbon Carbon tiles.

Like the Original Design called for before all types of fun games happened for reasons that never panned out, instead of the Aluminum that it ended up using

Which force the use of the better insulation of Carbon Carbon Tiles blah blah, go look in the Shuttle thread here it has it all.
 
Tiles and ablatives in combination might be good for outer solar system sample return. I imagine they would could come in so fast you might want a combination.
 
publiusr said:
Tiles and ablatives in combination might be good for outer solar system sample return. I imagine they would could come in so fast you might want a combination.
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No, just stick with one and make it thicker. No advantage to use different layers.
 
publiusr said:
Similar to Starlite?
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I was Maurice's initial contact point at McDonnell Douglas in connection with the JAST program, but management of the overall Starlite effort was handled by someone a bit higher up in our management chain. Unfortunately that manager disliked Maurice intently. I can remember one visit that Maurice made with his daughter and how verbally abusive our manager was to him, with her sitting right there. Our manager was bizarrely determined to discredit Starlite. Somewhere in my files I may still have the memo that he circulated to the upper management responsible for advanced technology development in general, where he recommended that we drop Starlite and go instead with something like this Aircrete stuff. The problem with that, though, was that the material he was pushing was "cementitious" I think was the word; much heavier for a given thickness than Starlite, and couldn't be made flexible or be incorporated into plastics or foams, both of which Starlite not only could be, but which it had been for the initial series of tests that we ran with it. The "cementitious" materials have much more limited applications in that regard.
After the Boeing/MDC merger I moved on to other things and heard very little about further Starlite efforts, if any, in the Company. I know, though, that Maurice told me that only he, his wife, and his daughter knew how to make Starlite, and interestingly he said that he hadn't told them everything, that only he knew how to make what he called "the good stuff." So when he died, I imagine they were handicapped in what they had to offer, unless Maurice changed his mind and gave them the full recipe. I also know that there used to be a coating material that was developed by a company whose name I can't recall, "Superior" something (???) and when we put some of it in the same torch testing that we'd done with Starlite in 1996-7, the time/temperature curves of the two materials were identical. But whatever became of any of this, I have no idea.
 
My impression is, that Starlite was not mechanically very strong. I doubt it would have stayed in place when the air is rushing with high mach numbers.

In the video from the BBC, it was emphasiest, that it could widthstand the thermal blast of a nuclear explosion (that's heat ray) but it was never claimed it could widthstand the following air pressure blast.
 
The problem is that what killed Columbia was a broken carbon-carbon leading edge.

Any alternative material would need to be equally heat-resistant, equally light, and somehow significantly more impact resistant. (Admittedly, RCC is not anywhere near as strong as even regular Carbon-fiber composites, it's basically carbon fibers in a graphite matrix which is about as strong as it sounds)
 
Nicknick said:
My impression is, that Starlite was not mechanically very strong. I doubt it would have stayed in place when the air is rushing with high mach numbers.

In the video from the BBC, it was emphasiest, that it could widthstand the thermal blast of a nuclear explosion (that's heat ray) but it was never claimed it could widthstand the following air pressure blast.
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Starlite wasn't a "thing" - it was a family of things. When Maurice made his first visit here, he was upset because his suitcase had obviously been tampered with either at the loading or unloading end of his flight. I went with him up to his hotel room and watched him unpack what he'd brought. He had the famous tile that had been exposed to the nuclear flash simulator, another that he'd used frequently in demonstrations at ICI and BAe, and some basic materials in jars that he was going to mix up for a batch here. His way of working during our evaluation activities was that we'd tell him what kind of physical and thermal environment there was for a specific part we needed to protect - mostly JAST at first, then broadening out to other aircraft at other sites. He'd go off into the lab we'd provided for him (to which he insisted on having the only key) and mix up a batch that he thought would do that specific job. He'd coat the panels (more on that in a minute) and when they were ready he'd hand them over to us for testing. Based on the results of those first tests, he'd go back into the lab and refine the formulation, and we'd test again.
That was for Starlite coatings of various substrates. But Maurice also was able to incorporate what he called something like "the Master" ingredient into plastics and foams directly, instead of overcoating them. His widely-reported story about having been a ladies' hairdresser was true, but irrelevant, and he used it to obscure the fact that he'd spent many years in the plastic recycling business. He had the equipment to make and form all sorts of plastic, so folding Starlite into them was no problem at all. His favorite seemed to be polypropylene for some reason. Of course we didn't have those facilities here so everything he made locally was in the form of coatings. He did, however, make up some plastic and foam Starlite pieces in his home facility during the months when I was involved with the program, and we tested those too.
So think of Starlite as you'd think of "epoxy" for example. It was a basic material that could be reformulated as required to gain necessary physical and chemical properties. I've seen it as foam, plastic, and coating. I'm aware of versions that were intumescent, that charred, and that didn't appear to change in any way. We were going to use it in areas that had very severe acoustic vibration as well as thermal environments. But Maurice sensed that without Starlite we wouldn't have a viable JAST configuration (and he wasn't far wrong, to be honest) so he would only play ball if we paid him a truly extortionate price for each and every JAST airframe that we used Starlite on. That wasn't going to happen, and we ended up losing that downselect anyway, so attention shifted to other sites and projects that I wasn't personally involved with. I heard interesting things from them, now and then, but nothing came of any of it. Maurice has passed now, so has Rudy Naranjo (his main contact at NASA) and I'm not getting any younger myself. Pretty soon there won't be anyone left who actually saw Starlite in action firsthand.
 
Intresting insider knowledge. He was shurly a very special kind of guy. He was a showman and egoncentric, but other than most of these types, there was real knowledge and invention behind it. It's a pitty.that he prefered to not share it with the world, but.my idea is, he might have been afraid that Starlite was just too simple to produce. It might have lost it's magic if everybody could mix it in the kitchen
 
Perhaps someone could come up with a clever approach to use AI in order to try to recreate the process/formula, based on all known details and associated formulas and databases. And no, this time I'm not kidding. Happy New Year everyone!
 
What an amazing thread. I had heard of Starlite as a teen 30 years ago in french magazines similar to Popular Mechanics. Like many I dismissed it as fringe science. Well this thread has changed my point of view.
This forum membership will never cease to amaze me, @overscan (PaulMM)
 
stever_sl said:
So think of Starlite as you'd think of "epoxy" for example. It was a basic material that could be reformulated as required to gain necessary physical and chemical properties. I've seen it as foam, plastic, and coating.
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Interesting.

That suggests that it may have been possible to use Starlite as the matrix in the carbon-fiber composite leading edges, and as a result of which they likely would not have been anywhere near as brittle.
 
While some might have attacked the maker’s background as a hairdresser (outsiders have a place)—that gives researchers a starting point.

What kind of products, trade publications existed around the time of the invention? Did he ever work with hair-relaxers needed for thicker hair? If so the secret for Starlite might be found in the pages of EBONY or Jet.

What goes in the blue water?

Does the estate have a client list or other ephemera?

Were NASA folks his main customers?

Lots of rabbit holes for folks to take a Will Graham approach…shades of MANHUNTER.

An individual who puts himself in the inventor’s place might rediscover some secrets.
 
As always, sine ira et studio applies. In science, it is vitally important to remain completely agnostic to a claim when researching its merits.
 
publiusr said:
While some might have attacked the maker’s background as a hairdresser (outsiders have a place)—that gives researchers a starting point.

What kind of products, trade publications existed around the time of the invention? Did he ever work with hair-relaxers needed for thicker hair? If so the secret for Starlite might be found in the pages of EBONY or Jet.

What goes in the blue water?

Does the estate have a client list or other ephemera?

Were NASA folks his main customers?

Lots of rabbit holes for folks to take a Will Graham approach…shades of MANHUNTER.

An individual who puts himself in the inventor’s place might rediscover some secrets.
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In order: I can only repeat what Maurice told me himself, that the hairdresser story was to mislead people. It was true that he'd done that, but it wasn't where Starlite began. I've seen the raw ingredients for the coating type of Starlite, and my ex-wife of 20 years was a hairdresser herself, so I know those chemicals weren't related.
The estate consisted, the last time I checked, of his widow and daughter. I don't know who they might have contacted after Maurice's death in 2011. They sold the rights to Starlite to a US company, Thermashield LLC, which has been selling "improved" versions, but I keep thinking about what Maurice told me about not sharing the complete Starlite material process with them. Maybe he changed his mind and gave them the full info before he died, I have no idea.
NASA wasn't Maurice's "main customer" but they had shown interest, naturally. Rudy Naranjo was the contact there. Both Maurice and Rudy died in 2011 though. Rudy called me several months after Maurice's death, saying that his widow and daughter were trying to rekindle NASA's interest. He asked if I thought Boeing would have any interest but based on some legal things that had transpired over the years since I'd last been involved with Starlite, I told him that I didn't think so, but that he should talk to the manager for such technology development. I don't know if he ever did. I hadn't realized that he was already retired from NASA when he called me, and several months later he died. Same year as Maurice, just 6 months later.
So no need to go digging into the mysterious past, just call Thermashield and see what they have to offer. Their URL is revealing, starting with the word "starlite..." :)
 
That's another reason I hate corporate culture. The guy behind Famous Amos was on SHARK TANK trying to get another cookie company started.

Meaning, he sold his name to the soulless and was poor again.
 
publiusr said:
I know oil derricks have this:
https://www.coatingsworld.com/exclusives/intumescent-coatings-what-are-they-how-are-they-used/
Any attempt to do business with the oil and gas sector, Steve?

For aerospace use, I wonder if Starlite and a binding agent could actually use a first re-entry to set the product somehow. Pour between two layers.
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I don't know exactly who Maurice had approached. Well, hang on, I do know a few. He had almost come to some sort of partnership (he said) with ICI (the UK chemical giant) but as I recall there was a problem because he wanted 51% of the business and they weren't ready to cede him so much control for an unproved product. There was BAe of course. It was one of their people, on our JAST/JSF first phase team, who knew Maurice and put me in contact with him in the first place. But Maurice told me, I believe in our very first phone call, that somebody there had violated the confidentiality agreement they'd signed and at least one person had stolen some samples and left BAe to form his own company, which didn't go anywhere because he couldn't figure out how to make more of it. Then there was Kaiser, fronting for the US Navy, which also ended badly. He mentioned Boeing (pre-merger, when I was working at what was still McDonnell Douglas) as well as Pratt & Whitney. But I'm sure there were others that I've either forgotten or never heard about.
 
My initial question was would Starlite have been effective enough to prevent the occurence of condensation to prevent the build up of ice on the ET. Preventing the Challenger disaster is easy as people have stated either monolithic SRBs or LRBs but with LRBs depending on placement(Parallel vs Staged)could make the icing foam strike problem worse LRBs right in front of the wings leading edge.
 

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