I have very little positive feelings about NASA’s ethics and their
scientific/engineering capability. IMHO they are under the thumb of the solid
propellant rocket industry which supplies the military with rockets and other
kinetic energy missiles and shells for large guns.
In the late 70’s NASA ignored an improvement in solid propellant design to
avoid the CHANGLLER loss in the 80’s. The design was to introduce a casing
with no O rings seals and the potential joint failure that happened with
CHALLANGER.
The fix involved the use of cryogenic fuel preparation, allowing a continuous
pour of propellant into a shell casing with no mechanical joints, replacing the
batch preparation of solid propellant used by the existing rocket manufacturing
companies.
Bob Cook
Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10
From: JonesBeene
Sent: Monday, July 8, 2019 11:49:39 AM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: RE: [Vo]:Of interest - abandoned LENR patent applicationUS20130044847A1
Bob,
For some reason – despite the logic which you mention and the obvious problem
with activation, NASA still believes that W&L got it right. Go figure.
I suppose that if they were proved to be accurate, and NASA may know something
which we do not – then the redeeming feature of that hypothesis would have to
be this: the neutrons are so deflated that the boron-10 would not produce the
normal high energy alpha at all. In fact the neutrons could all decay and all
you have is low intensity betas.
Is there another option? – who knows, unless there are results that are
unpublished ?
It seems more realistic now to dump the ultra low momentum species altogether.
From: bobcook39...@hotmail.com<mailto:bobcook39...@hotmail.com>
Jones—
Slow neutrons are not very nice in engineered items. They can activate many
stable isotopes,s making a practical invention problematic.
I was worried from the get-go that, if W-L was correct, LENR would be a tough
technology to make practical. I think the B-10 reaction with a slow neutron
produces an energetic alpha. It should be readily observed in CR-39 shields
doped with B. I don’t think the alphas were observed as much as predicted.
The SPAWAR research would have confirmed the W-L theory. I do not remember
that it did. (See the final report of 2016)
Bob Cook
_
From: JonesBeene 1
I must have signed up to get notices from USPTO since neither the inventor nor
the application is familiar.
Anyway – today this effort to Patent a particular concept for a LENR reactor
was abandoned by Dan Steinberg, whoever that is - and the claimed operational
mechanism appears to be strongly influenced by the low momentum neutron
conjecture of Widom and Larsen. Perhaps there is some connection.
No wonder that it was abandoned. These neutrons have yet to be documented yet
the hypothesis lingers on.
“Apparatus and Method for Low Energy Nuclear Reactions”
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130044847A1/en
Abstract
Provided are a method and apparatus for low energy nuclear reactions in
hydrogen-loaded metals. A nickel cathode is disposed inside a pressure vessel
loaded with heavy water. The vessel is heated to a temperature at which nickel
oxide is reduced in the presence of hydrogen. The cathode is electrified,
thereby producing hydrogen at the cathode, which removes any oxide layer on the
nickel. The nickel can therefore more easily be loaded with hydrogen. The
nickel cathode preferably has embedded particles of neutron-absorbing and/or
hydrogen absorbing materials, such as boron-10…
Boron-10 appears to be the key to this particular claim – and the reason is
clear.
This isotope has a cross-section for low energy neutrons of at least 3840
barns – “bigger than a barn” so to speak and if you believe W&L got it right –
then this would have been your winning lotto ticket.
Never mind that the claim was never “reduced to practice”… as they say in
Crystal City.
Unless that is – you are old enough to remember so called “Zip fuel” …