Hi Bill,
These were the ceramic beads with Pt/Pd plating, about the size of BBs. (If
they'd been solid Pt/Pd, ERPS would have had a source of funds.) It was the
ceramic which failed mechanically.
The X-37B observation was at a low angle, about 15 degrees IIRC, so the
slant range would have been over 2000 km. No structure visible in 10x50s. I
have observed in 18x50 IS binoculars that ISS is not a point source when
overhead, but it is so bright that irradiance makes it impossible to see
any detail.
I did see definition all the way to apogee every time I tracked SS1 with
the 10" Dob. It wasn't much: when Mike Melvill did his 29 victory rolls on
the way to space, it appeared to me that the vehicle was tumbling end over
end. 24mm eyepiece IIRC, so magnification would have been ~52x.
-R
On Friday, September 16, 2016, William Claybaugh <wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Randall:
Very clever, raiding catalytic converters. I'll look into exactly what
the car companies use; pure platinum / palladium should not have failed at
peroxide temps....
Just curious and OT, but could you see more than a bright dot? Wings?
Bill
On Friday, September 16, 2016, Randall Clague <rclague@xxxxxxxxx
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rclague@xxxxxxxxx');>> wrote:
Hi Bill,
Not hardly; these were platinum/palladium beads scavenged from a
catalytic converter at a junkyard. Considering the difference in mass flow
between what they were designed to handle and what ERPS asked of them, it's
no wonder they were pulverized. It's a tribute to automotive engineering
that they worked for as long as they did under those conditions.
I didn't know that about X-37, thanks. I did see one in flight. 10x50s
from a Burbank back yard. 22 Dec 11, so that would have been OTV-2.
-R
On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 1:33 PM, William Claybaugh <wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxx
wrote:
Randall:
I deduce from your discription that the Platimium / Palladium was
deposited on some sort of matrix and that the coating came off under
differential thermal expansion; yes?
The 98% peroxide thrusters developed--but not used--for X-37 used woven
screens in more or less the conventional manner used for silver. They
worked w/o incident in testing.
Bill
On Thursday, September 15, 2016, Randall Clague <rclague@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
ERPS tested platinum/palladium beads in 1994. The beads work fine in
an ashtray, as ERPS demonstrated during their talks at Space Access '94 and
'95. (In '95 they scorched the tablecloth, and they were asked not to
repeat their demonstration.)
Video of a test ERPS did with a platinum/palladium bead catalyst pack
shows that the exhaust starts out white, goes clear, then turns tan.
Post-test inspection showed that many beads were crushed or absent. The
tan exhaust was interpreted as pulverized catalyst departing the engine,
and their hypothesis was that the beads lost structural integrity due to
thermal shock.
-R
On Wed, Aug 24, 2016 at 11:46 PM, William Claybaugh <
wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm pretty sure that Platinum / Palladium cat beds are proven to work
just fine and last forever running 98% Peroxide.
Bill
