"Liquid Landmine," Qaeda Tool?

While traveling over the Easter break, we were prevented from taking a bottle of water on to a plane. It was an unopened bottle, bought in the departure area, so this seemed a bit overzealous. But liquid explosives are clearly still high on the danger list.

Maybe what's spooking airport defenders is Astrolite, an unusual explosive developed during the Vietnam War as an air-scatterable liquid landmine. It was an offshoot from research into high-energy rocket fuels (you might say this really is rocket science). Here's how Stars And Stripes described it in 1968:

*Latest development is a "Liquid Land Mine" using Astrolite, the most powerful known explosive. …Poured directly onto a dirt road, the stuff soaks into the first few inches of earth, giving tremendous upheaval power. Although the land mine was fired remotely in the test, a pressure-sensitive fuse can be sued that will react to the weight of a passing vehicle. Other virtues of the liquid are that it remains detonable for up to four days, even in the rain, but eventually deactivates itself, making dangerous minefield clearance unnecessary. Once applied, it cannot be detected by standard mine-detection equipment. Liquid Land Mine can be simply poured from canteen like containers says its maker, Explosives Corporation of America, or sprayed from trucks or helicopters. *

Astrolite could be spayed from the air and the area sowed with detonators, creating an instant minefield which would automatically neutralize itself after a few days. The blast effect from Astrolite was apparently quite impressive. I suspect the sensitivity meant the whole minefield went up in one – you couldn’t just have discrete patches of Astrolite close together without getting sympathtic detonations. Not exactly a smart or discriminating weapon, but dramatic.

Astrolite is very powerful, though to describe it as the "most powerful known explosive" is an exaggeration; it has a very high detonation velocity but low density. However, one ounce can take off your leg; half a pound is supposedly sufficient to disable a vehicle, and more could fling it high in the air. The two most common versions of Astrolite, termed G and A (A has added aluminum powder) are still used for commercial blasting. Several other versions were developed by the military but their compositions and effects are not known.

Will terrorists try to make their own Astrolite, as some fear? I hope so. It’s made using extremely toxic, caustic hydrazine and is highly unstable. Its inventor, Gerald Hurst warned some years ago that much of the information available about Astrolite was inaccurate and potentially lethal:

*In certain situations, Astrolite is as sensitive as nitroglycerin and much more prone to react with common materials. There have been several deaths from accidental explosions of these formulations, including at least two very experienced chemists. *

Astrolite and NG both blow up for their own reasons. They are both exceedingly dangerous. With Astrolite, it is the reasons you don't know that will kill you.

I would not be surprised is deliberately misleading information had been posted in the last few years with a view to causing would-be
Jihadis to blow themselves up. As Hurst says,

My advice would be to stick with PETN [a high explosive] and rattlesnakes.