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Wasn’t there also some issue with water when the A-12 or SR-71 was being built? Like the local water treatment plant started fluoridating the water or something, and it completely screwed up the production process?

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"Completely screwed up the production process" seems a bit overstatement: with the budgets at stake for these projects, adding a distillation step to the water isn't some massive financial burden.

Fair enough! I think the primary issue was that for a while, no one had any idea why previous processes just stopped working. But my recollection of this is obviously hazy at best.

Yes. They had to scrap tons of parts until they figured it out.

iirc they had to add the impurity back IN to get the process working again.

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