Re: Musk has lot of bold goals, but how many has he achieved?

"Jim Wilkins"  wrote in message news:[email protected]...

> ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_J37

"Steam generation at high altitudes required air to be pressurized to sea 
level pressure and delivered at a constant rate to a steam generator's 
burners; ..."

River steamboat developer Oliver Evans had experimented with supercharging a 
steam engine firebox in the early 1800's but concluded it was far beyond 
available blacksmithing capability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Evans

In Evans' time the modern metal lathe capable of geometric precision had 
only recently been invented, previously metal was turned like wood with 
hand-guided chisels. Machine tools that accurately cut straight and flat 
surfaces were still a decade or more in the future.

Iron couldn't yet be melted and was worked by heating it until soft and 
sticky enough to weld into larger forms by hammering pieces together 
(wrought), though with oxide and slag inclusions that randomly weakened it. 
That is the reason steam pressure was kept very low and engines very 
inefficient. The initial steam engines of the 1690's tended to explode so 
for safety only the vacuum from condensation was used for steam power for 
the next hundred years. Practical transportation required higher pressure 
and more efficient lighter engines.

The ability to melt iron, separate the slag, control the carbon content and 
produce steel in industrial quantity was developed between the 1850's and 
1880's. Then the older ideas became practical and technology leaped forward. 
Historically steel could only be produced in small quantities in covered 
crucibles.

Steel is iron with around half to one percent by weight of carbon and as 
little sulfur or phosphorus as practical. Cast iron contains as much carbon 
from the fuel as the iron will dissolve, around 5~6%, which lowers the 
melting point enough for a low tech air blast to reach but makes it brittle. 
Wrought iron is nearly pure iron with the carbon burnt out or not added, by 
regulating the air intake. Nails which are easy for the factory to form and 
the user to bend are similar to wrought iron.

This shows the danger of building large structures from cast and wrought 
iron:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Bridge_disaster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel
The European alternative "Damascus" of moderate carbon levels for hard plus 
tough weapons and springs was a mix of high and low carbon steels, produced 
by welding together alternating layers of both. This inventor was able to 
melt and cast it, in small quantities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Huntsman

Iron ore in Austria and Sweden was also pure enough to make good Roman and 
Viking swords similarly, but not larger items for which they used easier 
melting bronze. In many ways the tech of 1800 was little better than ancient 
Rome's. Water and sewer utilities were worse.