Focus Fusion July Update and other stuff.

[Enginerd]

If you can keep some piece of work hidden and undisclosed for >10 years, then it means it didn't work!

Just like thorium reactors don't work?

[Giorgio]

I'm agreeing except that we do have stuff kept under wraps for much more than 10 years. I'd bet a search of the patent office would show no really useful new metals in more than 30 years. ("I'd bet" means I haven't checked.) The exceptions are noteworthy. Liquid metals are exceedingly useful, but they were developed in such a way that hiding them would have been nearly impossible.

The point is that metals combinations are not infinite, and "inventing" new metals does not have much meaning.

Patents on alloys (combinations of different elements) are still happening, but new combinations (that can have a broad range of use) are scarce becouse you only have few elements that you can combine to get something usefull and the mixing percentages are also very limited.
Most of those combinations was patended long time ago.

What you have now is mainly few specialized players in Industrial Alloys Manufacturing that are patenting special alloys combinations or variations in their manufacturing process.

Try looking on USPTO for patents assigned to "Sandvik" as example. These guys made (and are still making) their fortune by innovating standard Stainless Steel alloys to use them in the chemical processing industry.
Yet, outside their market, they are almost unknown.

[GIThruster]

Giorgio, I have it on good authority that the metallurgy industry regularly comes out with new, fantastically useful alloys. The folks involved don't file for patents because they know USG is going to take the tech. Happens all the time.

[Giorgio]

Don't know there in USA what the situation is, so I cannot really comment on your sources, but here in Europe as soon as they get a better alloy they rush to patent it. There are other 6/7 other players like Sandvick, each one with his niche market and each one of them is very active in patenting new materials.

[IntLibber]

Giorgio, I have it on good authority that the metallurgy industry regularly comes out with new, fantastically useful alloys. The folks involved don't file for patents because they know USG is going to take the tech. Happens all the time.

Yeah, anything that is useful for submarines, stealth, or hypersonic thermal tolerance gets made deep black. The whole viability of spaceplanes has been stymied by the government not wanting other nations to build new MIRVed warheads that perform better than the US arsenal.

Unfortunately, Russia's metallurgists are better than those in the US since they have better access to lots of metals resources than we do and our technology drifted toward composites in the 80's as a result.

I remember when the iron curtain fell, prices for titanium, and just about every other expensive metal, fell by 2/3 to 3/4 as Russian metals traders could flood the US market with their inexpensive goods.

[choff]

At least 10 years ago I read an interview with a guy who headed up skunkworks, he said they've kept some things under wraps for over 40 years! Since nothing's been unwrapped since the stealth bomber that would be at least 50 years by now. The military establishment is so big and so secretive they've probably lost track of all the secret bunkers and buried experiments.

[Skipjack]

The military establishment is so big and so secretive they've probably lost track of all the secret bunkers and buried experiments.

Personally I think that the US is going way overboard with this. At some point the economic disadvantages outweight the military advantage.

It is true that Russia has lots of resources. This is why me and some others would really like them to join the EU (provided they get their political act together at some point). With the German know how and craftsmanship and Russias near infinite resources, we could dominate the world economically (even with countries like Greece slowing us down).

[chrismb]

It may be better to clarify what a 'secret' is, that we are talking about here.

There are the kinds of secrets where somebodyorother said this-and-that to such-and-such and watchamacallhim knew but didn't tell. We're not talking about that type.

There are the kinds of secrets like if the Navy had a fleet of special air-craft carrying submarines. We're [well, I'm] not talking about this, because it is technically feasible it's just that whether or not someone has done that is a bit boring [from the point of view of scientific improvement].

I'm talking about the kinds of secrets where without knowing that key secret that a technology or activity is simply not possible to do at all. Like, how to make a nuclear bomb. That's a secret [to make a good one - the N Koreans didn't seem to figure it out, even with all the materials to hand] and I hope the 'enabling' details are, indeed, kept a secret. But it doesn't mean that we don't get to see the technology manifest, or in action.

So if you guys are talking about different 'engineering secrets' to what I am talking about, then it is probably better that we understand we're talking about different things. I'm talking about the kinds of secrets whose outcomes you may, or may not, be able to see but that are enabling bits of knowledge that can move the state-of-the-art on. I'm just saying that we would 'see' the outcome of some enabling bit of engineering/science, though we may not get to know exactly what it is. If it wasn't a bit of information useful to actually putting something out into the public awareness, then it probably didn't work. Clearly, then, in the case of fusion, if someone points to a fusion reactor pumping out energy then, clearly, someone has sussed the 'secret' of fusion power and that we can know that someone has done that, even though we may not know what the underlying secret is.

[WizWom]

I think the U.S. should institute a policy of downgrading technology to "classified" after 10 years at most, and declassifying it entirely if it becomes commercially available in another country.

We hurt our economy by classifying things that people could make money off of; it has contributed to the perception that the U.S. is behind Japan and Germany in technology.

[GIThruster]

You mean something like the difference between we know there's an X-37B and we know it must use some funky metallic TPS made of what, we know not what? But whatever it's made from, it would enable all sorts of other reusable, long duration spacecraft if indeed we could get DOD to share.

[GIThruster]

I think the U.S. should institute a policy of downgrading technology to "classified" after 10 years at most, and declassifying it entirely if it becomes commercially available in another country.

We hurt our economy by classifying things that people could make money off of; it has contributed to the perception that the U.S. is behind Japan and Germany in technology.

In agree completely. One of the promises OBama made during his bid for office was to work with DOD to get more of their tech out to the civilian sector. If NASA had half what USAF has, I bet we'd have something flying much better than Venturestar.

[Skipjack]

I would guess that it is the same metallic TPS that they made for the X33 back in the days?
I agree WizWom on the idea on a policy. The rocket technology export limitation policy of the US is e.g. severely limiting the competitiveness of US space engineering companies. Personally I find this sort of policy close to criminal, especially in an economy like this.

[GIThruster]

Pretty sure the X-37 must have a more advanced TPS. It has a slender body with relatively higher loading. X-33 was a fat, low mass blob that when empty, could return with very little loading. It didn't have a metallic TPS at all, IIRC. The vast bulk of the craft was the composite tank. It was because they planned to fly the tank back empty that they had the unique low loading situation they had. X-37B isn't like that at all. It's not even single stage. It's launched on an Atlas V.

[chrismb]

You mean something like the difference between we know there's an X-37B and we know it must use some funky metallic TPS made of what, we know not what? But whatever it's made from, it would enable all sorts of other reusable, long duration spacecraft if indeed we could get DOD to share.

Yeah. exactly. And, yes to the point about it likely being useful to the commercial economy in general - even if the details are kept under wraps, the material itself can be made available by those able to manufacture it. OK, some reverse engineering may go on, but that is increasingly difficult with 'nano-' material engineering and complex alloys.

[Skipjack]

It didn't have a metallic TPS at all, IIRC.

Oh yes, they did develop a metallic TPS for it that even allowed for sharp leading edges.

http://www.aerospaceguide.net/space_planes/x-33.html

Thermal Protection System (TPS) certification: The rugged, metallic thermal-protection system panels designed for the X-33 had passed an intensive test series that included sessions in high-speed, high-temperature tests in laboratories, wind tunnels and NASA research aircraft to duplicate flight conditions. Industry partner BF Goodrich had delivered more than 95 percent of the X-33's TPS panels. NASA expected the panels could reduce maintenance time and costs associated with more fragile thermal tile systems. The panels also made up the lower surfaces of the rocket plane's aerodynamic structural shell, resulting in significant weight savings over traditional thermal systems while being more durable and waterproof.