Monthly Archives: July 2021

What I learned by running for office.

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I’m an enemy of unity and a harborer of prejudice. During the election, I was told that all Republicans are, and I’ve come to accept it as true. I’d run for county water commissioner (drain commissioner) as a Republican, see web-site, and the charge is fair. I wasn’t happy to that George Will write to not for any Republicans because, in his opinion, we’re all prejudiced, and thus a Democrat is better for all jobs. When George, or anyone else, talks about getting rid of the prejudiced, it sounds to me like he wants to get rid of me and those who think like me. We’re to be replaced by those who think like him, or (since he has few solid ideas) whose ideas are gleaned as an average of those running the respectable media (It turns out there are only a fairly few people running the respectable media).

Biden seems to have fallen into the presidency. He didn’t campaign, but the press and a lot of people didn’t like Trump, and could not settle on anyone with opinions.

I didn’t like how the Water department was run, or how the costs were distributed, and some of this has to do with prejudice — engineering aesthetics, I call it. After living with these prejudices or aesthetics, I’ve come to think of them as part of me. I worked to form my opinions — opinions of what was fair, and who was likely to do good work, and what was good engineering. My prejudices and opinions were developed over many years. They’re not perfect, but I like them. I don’t want to have to exchange my opinions and prejudices for the government’s. If I felt otherwise, I would not have run for office. I also resent sensitivity training — the person running them rarely shows any sensitivity, IMHO.

One of the things that anti-racists hate, and I support is zionism. It’s a founding principle of Black Lives Matter that black people in the US can’t be free so long as the zionist state (Israel) exists. Why is this? There is an assumption that all black peoples are one, and that zionists are oppressors. Not that you could tell a Palestinian from a zionist by skin color, but it’s a truth that the faculty of Princeton endorses.

Not long ago the faculty of Princeton University voted unanimously for BDS including a ban on any zionist speaker from speaking on campus. The faculty also picked George Will as the graduation speaker in 2020. Most of the professors chose to not vote, but of those who did (1/7 of the total including many Jews) the pro-BDS vote was unanimous. As a result, if Einstein were to rise from the grave, with the unified field equations finally worked out, he’d have to speak off-campus because he was a zionist, and the university is committed to BLM and anti prejudice. (Tell me again, how does anti-zionism help black lives to matter?; how does BLM help you get clean water or good sewage treatment?)

In terms of sewage treatment or bringing clean water, I’ve found that the sort of person willing to do the work is usually someone with an opinion, and that usually it’s a rough opinion. My sense is to let people have their opinions and to say, if you treat the sewage right, I treat you right. Good work isn’t cheap, and people who do it can’t be culled from those with the right views and political opinions.

While campaigning I told leaders of the pipe-fitters union that I could tell that the Pontiac sewage plant was badly run just by smelling the air around the plant — you shouldn’t be able to smell a sewage plant from miles away. They said that was a racist statement. I then told them that the boilers were rusty, and that at the roof of the digester cad caved in, at least a year ago. They said they’d already endorsed the Democrat, and only spoke to me as a courtesy.

Robert Buxbaum June 25, 2021

Branson’s virgin spaceplane in context.

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Virgin Galactic Unity 22, landing.

Branson’s Virgin Space Ship (VSS) Unity was cheered as a revolutionary milestone today (July 10) after taking Branson, three friends and two pilots on a three minute ride to the edge of space, an altitude of 53.5 miles or 283,000 feet. I’d like to put that achievement into contest, both with previous space planes, like the Concorde and X-15 (the 1960s space plane), and also in context with the offerings of Elon Musk’s Space-X and Bezos’s, Blue Horizon.

To start with, the VSS Unity launched from a sub-sonic mother ship, as the X-15 had before it. This saves a lot in fuel weight and safety equipment, but it makes scale up problematic. In this case, the mother-ship was named Eve. Unity launched from Eve at 46,000 feet, about 9 miles up, and at Mach 0.5; it took Eve nearly 90 minutes to get to altitude and position. It was only after separation, that Unity began a one minute, 3 G rocket burn that brought it to its top speed, Mach 3, at about 16 miles up. What followed was a 3 minute, unpowered glide to 53.5 miles and down. Everyone seems to have enjoyed the three minutes of weightlessness, and it should be remembered that there is a lot of difference between Mach 3 and orbital speed, Mach 31. Also there is a lot of difference between a sub-orbital and orbital.

Concorde SST landing in Farnborough.

By comparison, consider the Concorde SSTs that first flew in 1976. It reached about 2/3 the speed of Unity, Mach 2.1, but carried 120 commercial passengers. It took off from the ground and maintained this speed for 4500 miles, going from London to Houston in 4.5 hours. While the Concorde only reached an altitude of 60,000 feet, it is far more impressive going at Mach 2.1 for 4.5 hours than going at Mach 3 for three minutes. And there is a lot of difference between 120 passengers and 4. There is also the advantage of taking off from the ground. A three minute ride in a space plane should not require a 90 minute ascent on a mother ship.

X-15 landing, 1962.

Next consider the X-15 rocket plane of the 1960s. This was a test platform devoted to engine and maneuverability tests; it turns out that maneuverability is very difficult. The X-15 hit a maximum altitude of 354,200 ft, 67 miles, and a maximum speed of Mach 6.72, or 4520 mph. That’s significantly higher than Branson’s VSS, and double the maximum speed. As an aside, the X-15 project involved the development of a new nickel alloy that I use today, Inconel X-750. I use this as a support for my hydrogen membranes. If any new materials were developed for VSS, none were mentioned.

The Air Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle at Kennedy Space Center, May 7, 2017.

Continuing with the history of NASA’s X-program, we move to the X-41, a air-breathing scramjet of the 1980s and 90s. It reached 95,000 feet, and a maximum speed of Mach 9.64. That’s about three times as fast as Virgin’s VSS. The current X-plane is called X-37B, it is a rocket-plane like the X-15 and VSS, but faster and maneuverable at high speed and altitude. It’s the heart of Trump’s new, US Space force. In several tests over the past 5 years, it has hit orbital speed, 17,426 mph, Mach 31, and orbital altitudes, about 100 miles, after being launched by a Atlas V or a Falcon 9 booster. The details are classified. Apparently it has maneuverability. While the X-37B is unmanned, a larger, manned version, is being built, the X-37C. It is supposed to carry as many as six.

Reaching orbital speed or Mach 31 implies roughly 100 times as much kinetic energy per mass as reaching the Mach 3.1 of Virgin’s VSS. In this sense, the space shuttle, and the current X-plane are 100 times more impressive than Virgin’s VSS. There is also a lot to be said for maneuverability and for a longer flight duration– more than a few minutes. Not that I require Branson to beat NASA’s current offerings, but I anyone claiming cutting edge genius and visionary status should at least beat NASA’s offerings of the 1960s, and the Concorde planes of 1976.

Bezos’s Blue Origin, and the New Shepard launcher.

And that bring’s us to the current batch of non-governmental, space cadets. Elon Musk stands out to me as a head above the rest, at least. Eight years ago, his Grasshopper rocket premiered the first practical, example of vertical take off and landing booster. Today, his Falcon 9 boosters send packages into earth orbit, and beyond, launching Israel’s moon project, as one example. That implies speeds of Mach 31 and higher, at least at the payload. It’s impressive, even compared to X-37, very impressive.

Bezos’ offering, the Blue Origin Shepherd, seems to me like a poor imitation of the SpaceX Falcon. Like Falcon, it’s a reusable, vertical takeoff and landing platform, that launches directly from earth, and like Falcon it carries a usable payload, but it only reaches speeds of Mach 3 and altitudes about 65 miles. Besides, the capsule lands by way of parachutes, not using wings like the space shuttle, or the X-37B, and there is no reusable booster like Falcon. Blue Origin started carrying payloads only in 2019, five yers after SpaceX. There is nothing here that’s cutting edge, IMHO, and I don’t imagine it will be cheaper either.

Branson has something that the other rocket men do not have, quite: a compelling look: personal marketing, a personal story, and a political slant that the press loves and I find hypocritical and hokey. The press, and our politicians, managed to present this flight as more than an energy wasting, joy ride for rich folks. Instead, this is accepted as Branson’s personal fight against climate change. Presented this way, it should qualify as a tax-dodge. I don’t see it getting folks to stop polluting and commit to small cars, but the press is impressed, or claims to be. The powers have committed themselves to this type of Tartuffe, and the press goes along. You’d think that, before giving Branson public adoration for his technology or environmentalism, he should have cutting technology and have been required to save energy, or pollute less. At least beat the specs of the X-15. Just my opinion.

Robert Buxbaum, July 12, 2021

Alice’s Restaurant and Nuclear Waste

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It’s not uncommon for scientists to get inspiration from popular music. I’d already written about how the song ‘City of New Orleans’ inspires my view of the economics of trains, I’d now like to talk about dealing with nuclear waste, and how the song Alice’s Restaurant affects my outlook.

As I see it, nuclear power is the elephant in the room in terms of clean energy. A piece of uranium the size of a pencil eraser produces as much usable energy as three rail cars of coal. There is no air pollution and the land use is far less than for solar or wind power. The one major problem was what to do with the left over eraser-worth of waste. Here’s the song, it’s 18 1/2 minutes long. The key insight appeared in the sixth stanza: “…at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile Is better than two little piles…”

The best way to get rid of nuclear waste would be (as I’ve blogged) to use a fast nuclear reactor to turn the worst components into more energy and less-dangerous elements. Unfortunately doing this requires reprocessing, and reprocessing was banned by Jimmy Carter, one of my least favorite presidents. The alternative is to store the nuclear waste indefinitely, waiting for someone to come up with a solution, like allowing it to be buried in Yucca Mountain, the US burial site that was approved, but that Obama decided should not be used. What then? We have nuclear waste scattered around the country, waiting. I was brought in as part of a think-tank, to decide what to do with it, and came to agree with several others, and with Arlo Guthrie, that one big pile [of waste] Is better than two little piles. Even if we can’t bury it, it would be better to put the waste in fewer places (other countries bury their waste, BTW).

That was many years ago, but even the shipping of waste has been held up as being political. Part of the problem is that nuclear waste gives off hydrogen — the radiation knocks hydrogen atoms off of water, paper, etc. and you need to keep the hydrogen levels low to be able to transport the waste safely. As it turns out we are one a few companies that makes hydrogen removal pellets and catalysts. Our products have found customers running tourist submarines (lead batteries also give off hydrogen) and customers making sealed electronics, and we are waiting for the nuclear shipping industry to open up. In recent months, I’ve been working on improving our products so they work better at low temperature. Perhaps I’ll write about that later, but here’s where you’d go to buy our current products.

Robert Buxbaum, July 4, 2021. I’ve done a few hydrogen-related posts in a row now. In part that’s because I’d noticed that I went a year or two talking history and politics, and barely talking about H2. I know a lot about hydrogen — that’s my business– as for history or politics, who knows.