In article ,
"SteveS" writes:

"raden" wrote
SNIP
Now that's where you're wrong. The cooker ignition circuit was developed
(along with PTFE) by NASA scientists for lighting Saturn 5 rockets from a
distance after they had several failures with the "light blue touch paper
and retire to a safe distance"

It's untrue, BTW, that Teflon came out of the Apollo program. PTFE was
actually discovered accidentally by Roy Plunkett at DuPont in 1938. It was
first used for making gaskets and seals resistant to uranium hexafluoride
during the Manhattan Project. It might not rocket science, but nuclear
physics, perhaps.

However, it took years to work out how to make it stick to the
bottom of a saucepan, and those who remember the first teflon
pans will doubtless recall that it didn't stick for long ;-)

--
Andrew Gabriel