nah bill, platinum is 600 dollars an ounce, its price has shot up over the past five years. Brent

From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com> Reply-To: cypherpunks@ssz.com To: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>, cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com Subject: Re: CDR: Re: Shooting down 'Bandit Satellites' Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 12:33:25 -0800

At 06:16 PM 03/01/2001 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:

...

Technology wise, I'm real keen on the Hydrogen Peroxide Catalyst engines, especially Platinum catalyst. Platinum is problematic, rare & expensive. Say 1 out of 1,000 potential hobbyist can afford it. Hydrogen Peroxide can at least theoretically be done in a garage lab, so we'll leave this 1-1 for now.

Platinum costs vary, but I've never seen it above $500/oz, and I think it's more often about $300, e.g. about the price of good marijuana, which far more than 1 in 1000 hobbyists can afford :-) How much of it do you need for a can-sat engine's catalyst?

That's separate from questions of whether it's easy to work with, or whether you can get the catalyst into the form you need, e.g. wire mesh or particles spread on fiberglass or whatever.

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