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  #11  
Old 07-09-2019, 10:01 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghrocketman
I actually believe in the old DuPont slogan of "Better living through Chemistry", but some things are beyond ridiculous.

I am definitely NOT of the camp of "OOH... CHEMICAL... MUST be BADDDD".
Will NEVER buy into the "Enviro-WHACK" agenda; most ALL of the "green" agenda is WHACK CRAPOLA we don't need AT ALL, EVER !

Actually I do believe in an environmental agenda; just not one any stricter than that followed by Dow Chemical, General Motors, Ortho/Chevron, and DuPont in 1957.

Same for the EPA; no more power than they had in 1957; NONE !
The DuPont slogan (thank you--I hadn't known exactly where it originated) does make sense, in the proper context; many chemicals *have* (and do) made our lives, and those of other animals, better, but not all chemicals do (and some previously-considered-safe chemicals have later been found to have deleterious effects). Sadly, some excellent chemicals have also been banned or dropped because of misunderstandings. For example:

Radium paint (used on watch, clock, and instrument dials, to make them glow in the dark) is excellent, but it has all but disappeared from the market because many factory workers who painted the dials developed cancer. But it was oral cancer, which they facilitated by licking the brushes between applications, over many years (to bring the brush hairs back to a fine point). Had they not done that (they could have "re-fined" the brush tips via other methods), their radium-caused oral cancers would never have occurred--but even so, what they did never endangered those who bought and used the devices. But because of that misunderstanding, we're now stuck with tritium watches, clocks, and instrument dials, which don't glow as brightly or as long (because tritium's half-life is much shorter than radium's, and each decaying tritium atom emits fewer particles than a decaying radium atom). Also:

Even some dangerous chemicals are useful and even beneficial, in sufficiently small amounts (many of the trace elements we need are in this category, and even water and oxygen are toxic if taken in far-too-high amounts). Thinking about it more since my last posting, it is possible that very small amounts of hydrazine (very little would be needed on each onion), sprayed on onions, could--in addition to preventing them from sprouting in the store--be harmless. (The practice could have been discontinued due to the vegetable handlers/packers being exposed to much larger amounts of hydrazine and/or its fumes, especially after spills--hydrazine is an irritant, and is carcinogenic and [I think, although I might be confusing this attribute with dinitrogen tetroxide's] mutagenic ["Don't have kids after exposure!"].) Regarding the "Chemicals--bad!" mindset:

Whenever I'm talking with someone who says, "I don't eat food with chemicals in it," I either ask them if they eat anything (which always causes a puzzled reaction--I then point out that *all* foods and drinks are made of chemicals of some kind), or I say, "Not even dihydrogen oxide or sodium chloride?" (a depressingly surprising number of people don't know what those two common comestible chemicals are!) After the shock wears off, it invariably turns out--or I make them understand--that they don't want to eat foods with processed, artificially-made chemicals (more akin to industrial chemicals) in them. And concerning the environmental agenda as it is today (and which the EPA was set up to implement):

You are right. The agenda is based on the notion that "The American people have a right to clean air, water, and soil," which is impossible to grant or safeguard--due to nature! No one can stop a volcanic eruption, a rain-caused landslide that spreads toxic selenium into rivers or lakes that people get drinking water from, or a forest fire (except in rare cases, fighting those is a war of attrition and "cornering" [by making fire breaks to cut them off from more fuel], not extinguishing them outright). Decades ago, there were sensible--and enforceable--laws against pollution; at the turn of the (last) century, a housewife whose laundry was blackened by the smoke from a factory's smokestack could report the factory to the police--or sue the factory for the damages--and win! There was no notion back then about "a right to clean air, water, and soil," but the logical realization that human-caused pollution was a public nuisance and danger that could be, and was, proscribed by law. Chemical plants could also be, and were, punished for careless acts that resulted in poisoned land, water, and/or air. We need those sensible laws, not an EPA that fines a farmer for merely digging another pond to provide more water for his cows.
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
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http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
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  #12  
Old 07-09-2019, 10:28 PM
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blackshire blackshire is offline
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In the Wikipedia article about hydrazine (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrazine ), the section about its use as rocket fuel says:

"There are ongoing efforts in the aerospace industry to replace hydrazine and other highly toxic substances. Promising alternatives include hydroxylammonium nitrate, 2-dimethylaminoethylazide (DMAZ)[23] and energetic ionic liquids.[24]" I don't know if any of these would be safe enough to use in liquid propellant model rockets, but there should be some bipropellant combination, or a monopropellant (a liquid [or maybe a gel] mixture that would exothermically decompose like Jetex/Jet-X fuel), that is weak enough, and is sufficiently lacking in noxious exhaust fumes, to power model rockets, and here is one:

A possibility might be tridyne (see: http://www.google.com/search?ei=WVc...263.6lnOZzjsYSo ), a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen gas that is favored for CubeSat propulsion (*here* www.micro-a.net/thrusters-tmpl.html is a tiny thruster that is about Micromaxx size). Elsewhere, I read a few years ago that NASA considers tridyne safe enough to have in the cabins of manned spacecraft, so it should be more than safe enough for model rocket use. Micro-Aerospace Solutions, who manufactured the penny-scale thruster, says on that above-linked webpage of theirs:

"We have developed thrusters from 0.005 Newtons to 22 Newtons using a variety of monopropellants including hydrogen peroxide, hydrazine, tridyne gas and cold gas. Each type of system has unique benefits and aspects. We would be glad to discuss your microthruster propulsion needs to determine the best fit for your system. Hydrogen peroxide offers moderate monopropellant performance in a "green" propellant package. Hydrazine has higher performance and is used in many US government propulsion systems. Tridyne (a mixture of nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen gas) microthrusters have also been developed. These have the advantage of cold gas safety and performance comparable to hydrogen peroxide. This provides a safe, non-toxic propulsive alternative for cubesats and other nanosatellites."
__________________
Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR
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