Sounds as if it should be a band name instead of a blog post title.
Anyway, 15 years ago today in space history — April 4, 1997 — the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on the first mission for the Microgravity Science Laboratory, which included experiments in, yes, microgravity fire.
(STS-83 on Pad 39-A with Comet Hale-Bopp in the background. NASA image.)
During mission STS-83, astronauts James D. Halsell, Susan L. Still, Janice E. Voss, Donald A. Thomas, Michael L. Gernhardt, Roger K. Crouch, and Gregory T. Linteris carried out a number of experiments, including the “fire-related experiments” alluded to earlier. The fire studies were carried out in specially-built combustion chambers in the Spacelab module. Unfortunately, a fault in one of the shuttle’s fuel cells caused mission managers to cut the mission short and bring the shuttle home after only 3 days.
In other space history, 40 years ago today the USSR launched a Molniya rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying the Molniya 1/20 communications satellite into a highly-elliptical, high-inclination orbit known as a “Molniya” orbit. The French experimental satellite SRET-1 launched on the same rocket; it tested solar cell materials and studied the effects of radiation from the Van Allen belts.
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