August 26, 2020 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Re: Beta-Voltaic batteries: I’ve advocated looking into this sort of technology for years. Glad someone is doing it. The limitation is energy density (per mass, per volume), but the prospect of having the power last as long as the half-life of the driving isotope is very real. For low-power devices, this could be huge. It will require an outbreak of sanity wrt our civilization’s hysteria about radiation, radioactivity, and nuclear technology in general.
Re: China: I don’t think it’s automatically “stealing” to start trying to do reasonable things like reusing a booster stage or doing water landing of boosters on a platform downrange. That’s not SpaceX’s idea, that’s Isaac Newton’s idea! (SpaceX acknowledged its debt to the DC-X program, for example. I’d hate to have had some defunct government program trying to extract rent from them for doing a reasonable thing.) We should be happy that more people are building reasonable things that the physics of rocket flight require of us.
I suppose I’m souring on the concept of intellectual property in general, seeing how it is usually used. I’ve seen the most ridiculous things patented and used to destroy people. I’ve seen “inventions” patented before the patenter had any idea how to actually build it, then used to sue the actual inventor who later figured out how to actually build the thing. I’ve seen obvious use cases for a technology patented to prevent the actual inventors from being able to sell to certain types of customers. I’ve seen *math* patented. Supposedly patents reward inventors, scientists, and engineers, but has it worked that way for the past few decades? Patents these days are taken by the employers of the inventors, scientists, and engineers, who often had to do their work in defiance of narrow short-term management, on their own time. Independent shops almost never are able to gain any advantage from them, but large concerns use them to harass independent startups all the time. Whatever intellectual property was conceptually supposed to do, we have to realize what it’s actually doing to us.
The Chinese might have the right idea: A technique, technology, invention, concept etc, “belongs” to whoever is capable of comprehending it and making use of it. Defection from this perverse system is certainly providing them with an advantage relative to the legally strangled west.
I’ve patented something myself (as a resume item), but I almost wish I hadn’t. It’s a little lab instrument that will let us take a particular measurement faster than with a standard setup. My employer has told me they don’t want me “wasting my time” actually trying to build it though, and that we don’t have the money. But they’ll patent it and sue any other lab that tries to do something similar in the future. The wheels were already in motion when they changed their minds about building it. Annoying, because I had the parts list and quotes ready to go.
I think we could have a Rennaisance just by nuking the patent system (and copyright also, while we’re at it.) Or doing some drastic reform like making patents and copyrights non-transferrable from the inventor/author, so that the inventors/authors can maintain their professional independence, instead of being reduced to techno-serfs.
I saw this article on Yahoo Finance yesterday about a new battery from Elon Musk. I don’t know if it’s related to Robert’s nuclear diamond battery, and also Yahoo News is not a reliable news source. But it’s worth keeping an eye on the news on September 22:
“We are watching to see if Tesla and Elon Musk will reveal a ‘million-mile’ battery: Xpeng CEO”
“Musk is widely expected to reveal a major advancement in battery technology at its Sept. 22 celebration. The anticipation is a small part of the reason Tesla’s stock has exploded 190% inside of six months.
‘In our opinion this battery technology will be very advanced, potentially last for decades, withstand all types of weather/terrain, and be another major milestone for the Tesla ecosystem. In theory this battery will support an electric vehicle for 1 million miles and be a major step forward when competing vs. traditional gasoline powered automotive competitors from both an ROI and environmental perspective,’ says Wedbush Securities analyst and Tesla bull Dan Ives.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/we-are-watching-to-see-if-tesla-and-elon-musk-will-reveal-a-millionmile-battery-xpeng-ceo-171531166.html
MadRocketSci,
You wrote: “I think we could have a Rennaisance just by nuking the patent system (and copyright also, while we’re at it.)”
Actually, it is the other way around. It was when intellectual property became protected that innovation blossomed.
You may disagree with how your employer used or misused your invention, but that does not mean that the patent system is a bad idea or that it hinders innovation. You had other examples that show how the U.S. patent system degraded after they dropped the requirement that a working model be made, demonstrating the importance of how a patent system is implemented.
James Street,
I’m pretty sure that the technology that the article discusses is for rechargeable batteries. One of the more limiting and expensive factors for electric cars is the limited life of batteries and the way batteries are managed during use. If a battery set can outlast the car, then it is like not having to replace an expensive gas tank every 100,000 miles or so.