Shooting down 'Bandit Satellites'

[Ray Dillinger]

On Sun, 11 Mar 2001, David Honig wrote:

>
>Yeah, the problem is the fire marshall/BATF when they learn you're storing
>70% H202 in your garage :-)  And the neighbors when they ask why their cat
>is a bleached
>blonde now..

Um, there's a problem with 70%.  Actually a couple problems. 

First, if there are impurities, they can eat your catalyst.  
Specifically, if you have that much water, you'll run into 
problems with the platinum oxidizing/eroding at high 
temperature. 

Second, impurities add weight and don't add to your "bounce 
per ounce" of fuel.  With a thousand kilos of fuel at takeoff 
(and actual orbital rockets are lots bigger than that) your 
casually-included 30% water winds up being 300 kilos of dead 
weight holding you back at liftoff.  That's the place where it 
hurts most in terms of reaching high velocities.

And as to bleached cats...  Well, if some rocket-fuel grade 
peroxide spills on a cat, bleaching fur will be the least of 
its worries.

				Bear