WEBVTT - Can people really build missiles from scratch?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff from house stuff Works dot Com where

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<v Speaker 1>smart happens. Hi Marshall Brain with today's question. In the

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<v Speaker 1>movie Salt, could Evelyn Salt really have created an exploding

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<v Speaker 1>missile like you see in the movie? At the beginning

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<v Speaker 1>of the movie Salt, you see Evelyn Salt get outed

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<v Speaker 1>by a Russian agent and she is about to get

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<v Speaker 1>locked up, and she tries to escape, and she ends

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<v Speaker 1>up on this vacant floor of an office building, and

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<v Speaker 1>she needs a way to create a diversion. So what

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<v Speaker 1>she does in the movie is she disassembles a table

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<v Speaker 1>to create or to find a tube that she can

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<v Speaker 1>use as a missile launcher. And she finds some chemicals

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<v Speaker 1>and she mixes them together and she loads them into

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<v Speaker 1>a little cartridge that she finds at the bottom of

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<v Speaker 1>an office chair, and then she uses a CEO to

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<v Speaker 1>fire extinguisher to launch this thing and incapacitate a small

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<v Speaker 1>team of people who are trying to capture her. So

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<v Speaker 1>you watch it and you notice that she's mixing two

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<v Speaker 1>chemicals together. One of them is clearly marked as a

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<v Speaker 1>bottle of ammonia, and the other is a smaller bottle

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<v Speaker 1>with a dark red liquid in it. After mixing, she

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<v Speaker 1>gets this really kind of thick, reddish fluid that she

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<v Speaker 1>puts on some paper towels, loads into her little missile,

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<v Speaker 1>and then fires it. Is there any truth to this?

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<v Speaker 1>Is it possible to mix together any two maybe household

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<v Speaker 1>kind of chemicals and get an explosive that could incapacitate

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<v Speaker 1>a team of trained commandos? Most likely the writers of

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<v Speaker 1>the movie are trying to suggest that she's making something

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<v Speaker 1>called nitrogen triiadide, and it is a real chemical that

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<v Speaker 1>really can be made out of two simple chemicals that

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<v Speaker 1>you might find around the house. Traditionally, when you make

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<v Speaker 1>nitrogen try iodide, you take iodine crystals and you you

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<v Speaker 1>grind them up into a powder, and then you mix

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<v Speaker 1>that with the ammonia. And in the movie they're using

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<v Speaker 1>liquid iodine instead, but still those two chemicals will make

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<v Speaker 1>an explosive that can be pretty powerful. If you go

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<v Speaker 1>on YouTube, you can first of all find videos about

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<v Speaker 1>how people make this stuff, and you can also find

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<v Speaker 1>videos about how it explodes. And what you notice in

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<v Speaker 1>the exploding videos is that nitrogen tri iodide is incredibly

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<v Speaker 1>sensitive to any kind of pressure. In some videos, you'll

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<v Speaker 1>see them activated with just a touch of a feather

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<v Speaker 1>and it will explode with just that much disturbance. So

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<v Speaker 1>it's a very, very sensitive explosive. So the good news

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<v Speaker 1>is it really is possible to make a shock or

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<v Speaker 1>an impact sensitive explosive out of household chemicals that are

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<v Speaker 1>relatively easily available. But there are two problems with the

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<v Speaker 1>movie version that we see in Salt. First, she has

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<v Speaker 1>no time to dry her mixture and it wouldn't work

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<v Speaker 1>in the wet state that's shown in the movie. And second,

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<v Speaker 1>you can see and if you watch any of the

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<v Speaker 1>videos on YouTube, that nitrogen tri iodide is incredibly touchy.

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<v Speaker 1>It would definitely explode on impact, but it would probably

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<v Speaker 1>also explode during the launch process or the loading process

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<v Speaker 1>if it actually had been dry, So this might not

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<v Speaker 1>be the perfect thing to use for a missile as

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<v Speaker 1>shown in the movie. Now we can ask a second

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<v Speaker 1>bonus question, would Evelyn Salt actually have any hearing left

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<v Speaker 1>after a career of being a spy? As shown in

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<v Speaker 1>this movie, the explosion that she creates with nitrogen tri

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<v Speaker 1>iodide is just the first of many many explosions and

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<v Speaker 1>gunshots that her ears have to endure. She's in an apartment,

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<v Speaker 1>a small apartment, her small apartment when they throw a

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<v Speaker 1>flashband grenade in, and that grenade is powerful enough to

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<v Speaker 1>blow out the windows, so it certainly would have done

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<v Speaker 1>something to her ear drums. She's in a steel ship

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<v Speaker 1>where she dropped several grenades in close proximity to her ears.

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<v Speaker 1>That would be another set of explosions that would have

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<v Speaker 1>an effect on her hearing. She's in car accidents. She's

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<v Speaker 1>in a stone tunnel when she sets off an explosion

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<v Speaker 1>that's enough to take out the whole floor of a cathedral.

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<v Speaker 1>She stands in front of a bulletproof glass window and

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<v Speaker 1>shoots a whole handgun magazine and then a machine gun

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<v Speaker 1>magazine at it. She would probably, in fact, she would

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<v Speaker 1>certainly be deaf if this is her normal lifestyle, because

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<v Speaker 1>the ears can only take so much of this kind

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<v Speaker 1>of punishment before either you blow out the ear drums

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<v Speaker 1>or you just completely deadened their sensitivity to sound. So

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<v Speaker 1>we would probably if this were a real movie, see

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<v Speaker 1>a woman who's constantly replaced the batteries and her hearing aids,

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<v Speaker 1>or who is using sign language instead of speaking. If

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<v Speaker 1>you'd like to see some of the videos I talked

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<v Speaker 1>about in this podcast, you can go to Google and

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<v Speaker 1>type in brain Stuff Evelyn Salt, and it'll take you

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<v Speaker 1>right to the blog posts I did that contains the videos.

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<v Speaker 1>Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

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<v Speaker 1>from the Future. Join How Stuff Work staff as we

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