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In lugnet.publish.cinema, Matthias Jetleb writes:
You know, I have noticed this. Scratch a LEGO and you can definately smell a
strange odor coming from it, a very unpleasant odor. I bet as they slowly,
slowy decompose that give off fumes. But since it would probably take so long
to do so, I'm sure it's ok.
What is the half-life of a LEGO?
> (1) An odd but interesting point on the subject of a phenomenon known
> as out-gassing: On the Discovery Channel some time ago, there was a
> program dealing with what NASA has to go through to qualify items for
> space flight. It turns out that most materials decompose gradually,
> giving off various gasses (the process of out-gassing), many of which
> are toxic in large quantities. This is completely unnoticable on Earth
> since the atmosphere absorbs the gas and dissipates it. In a very
> small, closed environment, such as a spacecraft, where a very limited
> quantity of atmosphere is constantly recirculated the levels of gas
> build up toxic levels over a period of days or weeks. Short duration
> missions aren't really affected by it, but longer ones (Skylab, Mir,
> ISS) can see gas levels build up to unhealth levels. Carbon dioxide is
> removed by filters, but there are so many different types of molecules
> given off by different plastics and rubber compounds, etc, that it
> isn't possible to build filters to remove each one. This, it turns out
> is one of the main reasons why tools used in space are so rediculously
> expensive. NASA can't just buy them at the local hardware store - they
> have to be tested for both reliability (obviously) and out-gassing. It
> turns out that there aren't a whole lot of modern materials that don't
> exhibit this property. I would infer from this that we aren't going to
> be seeing Lego in space for a while....
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