Dear America: You should be mad as hell about this!

NoDrama said:

Are the legal licit drugs regulated? Over the last 11 years, ZERO terrorists have been caught by TSA, but some terrorists have been able to get past TSA. At a cost of 8% of the national Deficit we have gotten bupkis.

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One could easily argue that because they are illicit, they are "regulated"

You better be sitting down for this.

How GM thanks us for OUR bailout money

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Lvl5Gan69Wo

Corso312 said:

ahhh got a little [Heisenberg] in ya , do ya..

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I'm not certain cn

cannabineer said:

Nitrous oxide (Nos) is laughing gas. The other two oxides available in bottle are nitric oxide, NO, which is uninteresting except to neuropharmacologists, and dinitrogen tetroxide, N2O4, which is a colorless liquid (when pure) that boils at twenty-one centigrade and generates those characteristic red-brown nitric fumes. The latter is used as a storable oxidizer, e.g. in the Titan II and some Soviet designs. It doesn't have the same reactivity as nitrous oxide, N2O, unless you provide it with a hypergolic (auto-combusting) fuel like a hydrazine. N2O4/ MMH and N2O4/UDMH are the typical charges for high-performance restartable liquid-fueled bipropellant reaction engines, of which the Shuttle's OMS and RCS propulsion subsystems were premier examples.

As for the Germans, I remember that the A4 (weaponized as the V-2) used watered ethanol as the fuel and liquid oxygen as the propellant. Its immediate successor, the Redstone, used the same fuel/oxidizer. The German Messerschmitt 163 Komet interceptor used high-test peroxide as the oxidizer and a blend of hydrazine hydrate and methanol (C-Stoff or substance C) as the propellants. I am unaware of a deployed German or von Braun design that used nitrogen oxides for either propellant or auxiliary. (The A4 used peroxide decomposed with calcium permanganate solution as an auxiliary to drive the fuel and oxidizer turbopumps.)
Once von Braun and his engine specialists figured out how to properly cool a combustion chamber, they went to hydrocarbon and liquid oxygen, a combination with much better specific impulse than what amounts to vodka. The Saturn V's F1 engines were the acme of that line of development.
cn

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So methyl alcohol was in the Messerschmidt rocket fighters, not the v1. learn somethin new (or somethin old) every day. I'm not sayin your wrong about the amount of energy stored in ethyl vs methyl alcohol, im no chemist, all im sayin is, when it comes tim eto put fuel in an engine for maximum performance on a race track, or maximum endurance in off-road racing (baja 500, or the paris to dakkar rally) methyl alcohol is the discriminating racer's choice, not ethyl. i dunno why it works better, but i have a great deal of faith in the racers and race mechanics who use it exclusively. Theres a reason they use it even while they bitch about it's metal eating corrosive combustion products, and spend fat dollars on ceramic/metallic piston, and teflon lined combustion chambers. race engines are expensive as fuck, but losing races is even more expensive. if there was something even nastier on your engine that would help ya win a race these dudes would use the shit out of it. a race engineer told me years ago that ethyl alcohol doesnt expand as forcefully in the combustion chamber against the resistance of the pistons as methyl alcohol, and ethyl doesnt pack as much power in the same volume as methyl. gasoline fairs even worse, expanding slower, and to a lesser extent than methyl or ethyl, but delivers more force in it's expansion than ethyl against the resistance of the engine, but also delivers far more heat from the same volume of fuel.

just like titanium has greater tensile strength and hardness than steel, and is 30% lighter, steel is still a better choice for most applications in tools engines and construction, even when price is no concern. titanium is brittle, deforms under heat and pressure, and is useless as a spring or load bearing material. the same rules apply to many other materials. for a while fiberglass handles were issued to my wildland fire crew, but after one season i rehandled them all back to hickory. despite the weight savings, greater strength and durability, and resistance to water and chemicals, hickory doesnt melt when exposed to heat. Fiberglass handles are better in your garden, but on the fire line the epoxy that joins tool to handle softens and melts, then your tool head flies off into the woods. every scientist on earth in the early 60's through the 70's was pimping Triticale as the new grain to feed the planet. It's more nutritionally complete than wheat or rice, it's packed with vitamins, uses less water than most any grain crop, and can grow in terribly cold regions in crappy soil over a short growing season. On paper Triticale was perfect. But it tastes like gravel, has no gluten so you cant make bread, and is nearly useless for anything but animal feed. ethyl alcohol may be perfect on paper with every advantage, form a chemical perspective, if engineers could make it run, i gotta believe they would, but they havent been able to do it yet. Methyl however is proven in the most demanding engines on the planet short of rocket, jets and nitromethane dragsters.

As a chemist yerself, if you come up with an ethyl alcohol solution that could beat the best on your local drag strip you would become one wealthy motherfucker. of course i get 5% for being the inspiration dontcha know...