On the campus of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., you periodically hear–and feel–a thunderous roar as engineers ignite experimental rocket engines that are chock full of the same paraffin wax that illuminates candlelight dinners. The idea of using wax as rocket fuel isn’t new. People tried it years ago but couldn’t get the wax to work well enough to launch a heavy rocket into space.
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