Archived - So. Cal Fusion meet & JPL trip 5-19-07

[Todd Massure]

Our get together last weekend was great, and I think everyone had a good time and enjoyed lots of great discussion.

Jon Rosenstiel, Raymond Jimenez, Donald McKinley and myself went to the JPL open house and then Dave Cooper joined us later back at Jon's house in Anaheim.

Donald McKinley brought some really interesting out of the box ideas to the meet, Raymond Jimenez, a high school sophmore impressed me with not only book smarts, but also a surprising degree of practical real world knowledge, Dave Cooper brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to share as well as a quick wit and a lot of great stories, he was cracking us up all night. Thanks most of all to our gracious and hosts Jon Rosenstiel and his wife, they really made us all feel welcome and provided drinks and snacks for us all - hope we didn't leave too much of a mess Jon!
We were all very impressed with Jon's lab / shop area in his garage which was organized, well set up and equipped and very clean as well as his beautiful fusor, which absolutely made the detector scream.

In the main picture from left to right is Donald McKinley, Dave Cooper, Todd Massure, Raymond Jimenez and Jon Rosenstiel.

Todd Massure

[Richard Hull]

This was a real event and, to my knowledge, the first major gathering of fusor fusioneers on the west coast! I just knew you guys would have a blast. A tip o' th' hat to you all for getting together.

I have archived this as a major gathering with images of the folks and gear.

Richard Hull

[Paul_Schatzkin]

Very cool... and very gratifying to think that this little website had a hand in orchestrating such an august gathering. Congratulations.

--PS

[Richard Hull]

Lots of medicinal vibes and tons of estrogen in that place.

At first, I thought it was some sort of new fusion in the glowing bowls. Turns out they were noise makers with pleasing appearances.

Richard

[Jon Rosenstiel]

Here are a few photos I snapped of JPL's machine shop. The first two pics showing the complete shop were taken from the office mezzanine level. Several of the machines were running, but were not making chips. The large mill in the second pic (with JPL logo) was set up "dry running” the "Welcome JPL…" sign shown in the third pic. It was very impressive to watch this huge mill delicately trace out the letters on the sign.

We all got a kick out of the tool bit vending machine shown in the fourth pic. When the machinist needs tool bits he enters his employee number and the job number into the touch screen, selects the tools he needs, and the vending machine delivers.

Another highlight (at least for me) was the RTG display. I forgot to take photos, but here is a Wiki page describing the GPHS unit that was on display.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisoto ... _generator

Another highlight (sorry, again I forgot to take photos) was the semiconductor fabrication lab. It was quite obvious that JPL has an open account with K. J. Lesker.

Todd, Donald, Raymond, and I left JPL early and headed south towards my place to meet up with Dave Cooper. A great time was had by all, and I hope we can do this again next year.

Jon Rosenstiel

[David Rosignoli]

Sounds like you all had a good time.

Jon, I looked at the wikipedia page. I like the part about the RTG usage in satellites, and how much radioactive material gets released during re-entry. I didn't realize that Apollo 13 used RTGs. [The lack of radiation leakage from the protective housing makes the environmentalists look bad ]
Looks like there is some plutonium on the ocean floor:

"The failure of the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970 meant that the Lunar Module reentered the atmosphere carrying an RTG and burnt up over Fiji. It carried a SNAP-27 RTG containing 44,500 curies (1,650 TBq) of plutonium dioxide which survived reentry into the Earth's atmosphere intact, as it was designed to do, the trajectory being arranged so that it would plunge into 6-9 kilometers of water in the Tonga trench in the Pacific Ocean. The absence of plutonium 238 contamination in atmospheric and seawater sampling confirmed the assumption that the cask is intact on the seabed. The cask is expected to contain the fuel for at least 10 half-lives (i.e. 870 years)."

-Dave

[Todd Massure]

This first picture is of an unfueled (I assume!) RTG built for, but not used on the Cassini mission. On the left is a model of another RTG that had a cutaway, but I didn't get a pic from the cut away side. You can play "Where's Waldo?" and spot Jon and Donald.

The second pic is me - with goofy smile and a hand full of aerogel.

Todd Massure

[Jon Rosenstiel]

David,

They had a cut-away of a newer model RTG there also, was very interesting. It appeared to use the same fuel pellets as the GPHS-RTG. (The pellet shown glowing red-hot in the Wiki article).

The newer RTG was painted white, and I asked the engineer why. He explained that it was going to be used on a probe that would require a sling-shot from Venus, and the white paint was to prevent it from absorbing too much solar radiation.

Jon Rosenstiel

[Todd Massure]

It would have been interesting to have brought in a counter to the JPL open house especially around the area that they had the RTGs. Not sure if they would have let us bring one in as they had a security check.
I can only imagine the looks on the faces around if one of us pressed a counter up to that black RTG and it really started going off from some sort of residuals!

Todd Massure