Columbia Shuttle Halon Experiment

During the ill-fated January flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia, astronauts tested a

water-mist technology for fighting fires that may prove an effective replacement for ozone-depleting halons. Water droplets 20–40 microns in size encountered a small flame in the gravity-free environment, an essential experiment for learning more about the combustion process and how water interacts with flame. The research was sponsored by two companies hoping to commercialize the technology: Environmental Engineering Concepts, Inc. and Arizona Mist, Inc., in collaboration with the Colorado School of Mines and NASA’s Commercial Space Center. It was unknown at press time whether results of this test had been relayed to its sponsors from space.