Aspirins in times of war
I know of the use of aspirins as water detectors (Apr 07) from my year and a half (June 70 to Jan 72) in the US Army in the Republic of South Vietnam on the receiving end. I heard from people who had been there in the late 1960s that it had been used then as well. Perhaps the engineers and technicians using aspirins to detect water seeping into accelerators had been or knew someone who had been in Vietnam.
Because American counter-battery artillery fire was so effective, the North Vietnam army did not want to be around when the rocket launched. Therefore, they would bring rockets down from North Vietnam and gather launching supplies locally: bamboo to make launch platforms; old batteries, wire, and aspirins to launch the rockets. Crossed wires separated by an aspirin were used as a switch. It rains often in South Vietnam in the monsoon season and even in the dry season there is enough humidity close to the ground to break down an aspirin in a few days.
Randolph Herber, Fermilab
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