On Aug 12, 2014, at 5:21 AM, Kurt Feltenberger <kurt@thepaw.org> wrote:

> I found this article linked from another one, and thought it might have some relevance when discussing technology and development.  It touches on the "we did it fifty years ago with slide rules and vacuum tubes, we can do it today with super computers and iPads!"
>
> http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/479avvbv.asp?pg=2

What that says to me is that either the original developers of the stuff were criminally incompetent at documenting their process, successful production-scale synthesis was entirely due to one line technician named 'Bubba' who claimed his high success rate was due to whanging on the production vessel with a baseball bat in just the right spot exactly  17.5 minutes into the reaction, or (more likely) all of their lab notebooks are carefully packed away in crate OR65-91-887/A in Warehouse 51...next to the Ark of the Covenant :-)

For a newer look at this kind of thing in action, see here <http://www.airspacemag.com/space/americas-next-spaceship-180952126/>

Note what they're using as emergency radiation shielding :-)

--
Bruce Johnson

"Wherever you go, there you are." B. Banzai, PhD