Sometimes it takes a rocket scientist with Dr. Pamela Nenges.
Hello, this is Dr. Pamela Nenges with Sometimes it Takes a Rocket Scientist.
Today we have Dr. Bart Bartholomew joining us for part three. Hope you enjoy.
I want to talk to you about electric mobility.
I don't have one.
Here's the thing. I've been interested in electric aircraft now for a long time.
I built my first one probably about 12 years ago. It was not one with a human in it.
I've been watching a company called VeloCopter in Germany.
Actually the Germans are doing a lot of interesting things with electric vehicles.
A company called MANN does trucks and they were doing electric trucks quite some time ago.
I've been watching the way they've been doing things and Europe seems to be focusing on the infrastructures in a much more competent way than we are.
The other part of this is, and this is just a side note, we seem to be continuing to invest in models and concepts that were developed in the 1930s and 40s and we can't continue that.
Absolutely. I don't know the name. I don't know the name of the company but there's one that just decided to move to Dayton, Ohio.
Oh, Joby.
Yeah, okay. I'm going to go visit them just to see what their concepts are and all that.
It's the future. We have to figure it out. But the infrastructure is the most important thing.
I think most people think it's the plane or that we can do. But how do you deal with all of this?
It's a more complicated thing, having electric aircraft, because you have something, as I used to do, battery stacks for satellites and ROVs, you got to stay to charge.
Yeah.
You don't want to suddenly lose your state of charge in the air.
No, absolutely not. And I also think that the FAA has been so slow in dealing with UAVs.
I mean, they're still like hunkered down saying no, as opposed to saying how can we, whatever the how can we is, we know we can do it.
I mean, it is going to be complex and there might be some problems at the beginning that we could be unmanned and all of that.
But we can figure this out. I mean, we're not, we figured out the road system, the structure, and that's one dimensional or two dimensional.
But why can't we figure out a three dimensional?
We went to the moon, for God's sake.
Yeah, we can go to the moon, we should be able to go from place to place.
I got to tell you, the FAA, I'm on a committee with the Society of Flight Test Engineers, the EVTOL committee, Electronic Vertical Takeoff and Landing Committee.
Yeah, great. Great.
My cohort, our consulting chief test pilot, Jim Cassler, he wrote the whole program for vertical flight testing at the Naval Test Pilot School.
And he was trained, he was a Marine, I'll shout out to Marines.
I've got some good people in my life are Marines.
But the interesting thing is, is that where you have lots of small companies doing some interesting things, they're only beginning to look at the data issues and being able to communicate and do what is going to become real time simulation to be able to fly these things in urban areas and do regional air mobility.
And that's, that's a different kind of network than we can do right now.
The cellular networks can't do it. The other existing networks we can't do it, there have got to be other ways to do it and we've been working on a solution with that.
So that's wonderful, by the way, I'm glad you're working on it. You know you're one of the few people, yeah, I'm not saying that's not true.
You are one of the few people that is beyond discipline.
That sounds, that sounds bad, right, we can't discipline you but nevertheless beyond discipline. We need people that are beyond discipline because any one of the sub elements, any one of the disciplines could wipe you out, but when you, when you, yes.
Yeah, well that's great. I'm glad you're working on that. I mean, I, more power to you.
Well, I'll send that to you, but yeah, I was once referred to as the poster girl for the alternative movement.
Jim Logan who is the astronaut chief flight surgeon at JSC.
He was a friend some years ago and he said, yeah, you're the poster girl for the alternative.
Well good you are you are.
Couple more times things on breakthrough work and engineering and I'd like to talk to you more about your, your global work.
Yes, again sometime. Oh yeah, for sure. I would like that's a whole other subject and involves a lot of, you know, human aspects to it.
I'm involved in three different organizations now one is called the possibility club, which I'd love to get you in. Now, it's not a technical group.
Okay, I mean, I'm probably the most technical in the group, but a lot of philosophers, a lot of human study people.
Some are artists, even you know, like, how do we get it goes all the way back to what we were talking about about the childishness of the leaders and the, the ability for them to get beyond, you know, competition or you know, this country did something bad to my country.
400 years ago so I hate them, you know that is so ridiculous you know, and the reason I'm more concerned, I just wrote an article and I published it in LinkedIn, just a short article wasn't a blog or anything about AI and I made the point that.
And I think I've talked to you about this with the, you know, the rate of change of the rate of change okay like the second derivative, the third, you know, second derivative of change in a mathematical sense okay.
Yeah, and that's getting shorter and shorter okay that time constant is getting very very small. So, it isn't like we get all the time in the world to figure this out I mean things are happening very very fast I wish we had all the time in the world to do it but
you got to be agile enough to deal with and use properly. What is going on in this second derivative of change because, and I think it's going to take people with minds like yours agile minds, people, regardless of their physical age who are mentally and still at the entrepreneurial
level, like me maybe he I hope I hope I fit that category you know. So yeah, let's do that Pam I mean let's schedule another one. And if you'd like to.
I can send you something about what I'm doing and you know you can decide whether you want to get involved or not.
I don't have any way for the website. Okay, fine. I'll send you the latest. It gets bigger because I'm alive. Well that's great. I hope it is. Yeah, I'll send you that after we finish.
If that's all right.
Perfect. Yeah, well let's schedule something. It's so much easier if you decide to do that you know in terms of a zoom call. So we could do that but in the meantime, I'll send you a couple of contacts with the possibility club.
And we have one, save the world for the children. And it's not money that there's no money involved in any of this is no cost is no it's more ideas you know trying to come up with solutions to what we feel are imminent problems.
Absolutely. Oh, and the spy is no limit, your, your book. Oh my gosh, that's an old one you get the old version I can send you the pretty version.
I have a nice inscription in it so I'm keeping this one. Okay, keep it. But I have, I don't know if I do have your mail address.
Can you send me your mail address because what I do is I've got two more books out on Amazon. And the way I love to give people the books is to let Amazon do it because it's so much easier than me going to the post office. Okay, so if I had an address where you could receive, you know, Amazon products, they would be the two books.
Okay, I'll send it to you I'll give you everything. Um, alright, perfect. Um, and the issues of leadership, I, in my opinion in this we're not going to put this in the podcast Scott so you can stop recording if you want.
Well, I'm going to keep recording because I was going to ask if I could go back to some things you guys touched on and ask three questions because I'm a compulsive note taker.
I got three things that I want to ask about that popped into my head and my background of got degrees in English and philosophy and I'm a safety professional by trade, along with the songwriter so that's kind of where this stuff comes from.
Professional because he has degrees in English and philosophy. Yeah.
It all works out somehow. I'm not sure. But so, Mike cut this out, but to throw in a question that I had when you were talking about the NAS program and hypersonics.
My safety radar went up, because you're talking about the tech. My concern is for the pilots for the people actually running the equipment. What are the considerations there when you're going at those speeds at that height for potentially extended periods of time, how do you handle that protecting the actual pilots.
Well, I flew in the Blackbird, and the Blackbird gets up to three and a half which is very fast. Okay. But the good news is that when you're at high speed, you're probably at high altitude, I mean, you don't think of the NASA flying over causing huge sonic booms all over the whole country, you're way up there.
Okay. And so we had I had a lever in my hand, a big yellow one just like all planes have a military planes, you know, an ejection suit. This was an injection suit. So when we took off from the runway at Edwards.
The guy says look, if we if we catch on fire here there's no hope, I mean, we're just going to explode so you know that that part is almost hopeless you know, and that's true probably for any play, you know, like you know you don't do that you know you get up there and once you get up.
The question is do you ever want to pull that yellow handle and go the wrong way. Well, the answer is, it all depends on the equipment that is around the pilot. Okay, so I had a lot I look like an astronaut with a bubble head and all that kind of stuff so
Yeah, pressure suit, sure. And, and then, you know, but if you're going up, you pull the lever at three and a half, you don't have much atmosphere, the pressure suit is going to help you out. Okay, but you might want to have some sort of propulsion of very minimum type, you know, to get down.
But I think there will always be a risk that we will mitigate the risks, it's pretty much like the astronauts in the early days you know that you have to have a little courage in the beginning, but just like commercial airlines today, what what a marvelous safety record so I think
I don't know if I answered your question but it, you know, I think there will be, you know, ways of protecting the early fires the early test pilots like NASA has, but then as the technology matures will have maybe little.
I mean one of the wasn't in the blackbird would be a whole, a whole lot, you know, office console, you know, a whole bubble thing where you don't go out as a pilot you go out as a
pilot, and then you actually the flight deck was on rail so you could actually shoot the whole flight deck out, we had perfect perfect yeah the whole flight day. I was thinking over just a single single person.
And then you have the electronic. And basically the whole thing is it just automatically disconnects and goes out on rails. Yeah, that's that's the perfect thing I'm sure that'll be in the hypersonic vehicle.
It wasn't in the blackboard because we didn't know enough in those days to do that.
So does the B 52 have some kind of protective. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they have that so some of the players have that now. Usually the big ones to be 50 years about the biggest plane you can imagine, you know, but some of the big ones but yeah, there will
always be safety concern, just like commercial airlines, eventually, will be so good at it that the will be rare when what a commercial airplane crashes is happens obviously it's terrible.
And if you look at the record, I always tell that the people are afraid to fly said oh my god, the ability to, you know, to fly without any incident is almost 100%.
Fantastic. One of the other questions I had when you were talking about divisiveness and the way society is the way politicians have become, especially in the United States. The thing that rang in my head is was references to like the society of the spectacle and how the, the situation is
that government takes precedence over the actual work and the things that need to be done. And I wonder what your take is on that. Do you think that's a root cause or just simply a causal factor because to me, it feels like over the last decade to 15 years, a lot of politicians
have been the people in elected office but the people kind of below that level have realized there's power in the divide. There's power in creating an enemy. And that's the bigger part of the problem.
Yeah. Well, that's an interesting point because I've always maintained that if there was a real enemy, okay, then there might be collaboration by the two people that are divisive. Now, nobody wants a real enemy. Now this global power competition, that's a new buzz term in Washington, GPC or something like that.
I understand that obviously China is the big global power that the United States is worried about. So we're going to build up a big arsenal, you know, so that if we go to all over Taiwan, we can, you know, maintain, not nuclear. I don't think everybody wants to go nuclear.
I hope not. But I really think that when you get, it's kind of like the beyond discipline term that Pam uses. When you get beyond the country and look at the globe, that's why the overview effect is so powerful.
Because when you look at this little ball, blue balls floating in the atmosphere, you get why are they fighting so much fight for the blue ball. So I don't know what it's going to take. And I don't want it to be a catastrophe.
There have been plenty of science fiction books written on a meteor coming towards the United States that NASA has predicted. And all of a sudden people go, oh my God, our problems are trivial. Let's get rid of the meteor. You know, the big pictures use China and the United States together, they bond, you know, they put the nukes up there.
I don't know what it's going to take. But well, I thought the pandemic might have done something, but I don't think that helped at all. I mean, it just drove us back in, you know, so even two parties arguing that their program was better than the other one.
Well, I would say that we need a different approach. And China, I think we're foolish and thinking of them as somebody we have to fight. And I don't think that's the way we're going to resolve this. Do you remember Huawei? That we've had so many difficulties with Huawei?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And granted Huawei has been smacked down a couple times with Nokia and Ericsson for basically taking their technology and integrating it in their cell phones. But I got to tell you, I mean, honestly, Huawei in 1998 or so put together a facility with about 10,000 engineers and they gathered up technology from around the world.
Hopefully it was all commercial. Yeah, yeah, right. But they reversed engineered that technology for a good decade and learned from it. And the Chinese, I don't think they want conflict either because they know it's not beneficial.
It's not never. I mean, look at what Russia and Ukraine look, I mean, talk about a perfect example is say all you did was kill each other and you destroyed huge capabilities and the political leaders, although the one from Ukraine seems to be doing well.
I have a good Russian friend that works for me and she says, who's dead. That's just a double that they're using because they shot him somewhere along the line. I don't know if that's true or not.
Well, I don't know about that, but we're just torturing the Ukrainians at this point. Oh my God, it's ridiculous. And why we haven't focused on diplomacy and making Putin accountable. I'm perplexed.
I agree.
So that leads right into my third question. Okay. Most politicians, at least in the United States, are attorneys, or they've been brought up in political families, things of that nature.
How do we get more scientists and artists to run for office and ignore the obvious, the obvious is money. How do we get more scientists, artists, people with a more, a more expansive background to run for office and become, I don't want to say leaders, but representatives.
I was always hoping Pam would run for president, honest to God, I'm not kidding you. I mean, Pam represents clearly a very brilliant mind in the science area, but you know also, I gotta say this, I wish there were more women candidates for the office.
Now that's a terribly, you know, prejudicial statement, but I really do believe that women inherently have a more, you know, kind of stronger respect for human rights and because, because of the very natural situation women are in.
I mean, they are the child bearers at this stage of the game. They had that responsibility and then they mostly are to take caretakers of the family, even though there may be work and all that stuff so there's a strong feeling of, we got to help our children, we got to be work together and all that.
Now, besides women and that may not be a fair statement, because there's some really nice guys too, but a lot of guys grow up pretty macho, you know, by the time they get to that level. Well, Trump's a perfect example and I don't mind if you use this or not, but it just seems to me he's kind of a bully.
I always thought that, kind of a bully, right? If somebody like, let's take Pam, okay, if someone like Pam ran for president with all the money that she needed, you know, forget about the money part, which I understand is a big, big problem.
But eventually there would be a debate. And then Trump would look at Pam and have his guys research every minute of her life, every possible, you know, awkward or behavioral issue, even though she might have done it, you know, just in a positive way, bring that out and scare the daylights out of people's
self-affair. You know, I mean, that's what they would do. You know, the sad thing is, is that I come from a strangely and Scott can verify this conservative religious background.
Yeah, I don't do drugs. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I've been in regulated industries for a really long time. So I have like 30 plus years of drug testing. That's all negatives. I don't know if we can say anything there. I'm not a pervert. I don't torture hamsters.
It'd be hard to find something, but they'll make it up. They'll make sure they will. You know what? It doesn't even matter if you're the best. And, you know, if it's a political debate and half the nation is looking at and they say, oh, you did this and drop it right there.
You know, it's going to be hard for you to do that as a single woman. Number one, they're going to go. Oh, well, she was. Yeah.
Even that alone. Yeah. Even that alone. Yeah. I mean, but seriously, they're, they're, they're. Oh, no. You're right. I think the other reason, though, is, is that the money comes from people who do want to sustain the status quo.
That's where the money's coming from. You know, I went to school. My roommate was Bill Koch and Bill and his brother, Dave, went to MIT my year, my years rather. And we were in chemical engineering together.
They went on to run their father's company. And, you know, when I knew them, they were just, they were just students. You know, they would play basketball together. I mean, they're just nice guys. Okay.
And now when I look at who they're supporting, and I'm not against necessarily the Koch brothers, but, you know, they want their petroleum world to continue to grow.
Well, if that's the case, you don't want to do anything very advanced like battery powered, you know, or whatever. So I think the big money goes and money talks.
I have a friend who says America is the best country that money can buy, which I hate. I hate that expression, but I really believe it.
With enough money. And I think the real problem is the people that listen to these people, they're so vulnerable. They go, oh yeah, they're no good. So I don't know how it's going to end. I do like the catastrophe approach of saying, we better damn well get together.
But I want to stop the catastrophe. I don't want it to be a fake meteor.
Well, you know, here's the thing. We're having a G4 geophysical storm this weekend.
Oh, really? Yeah. That's why we got the thing here. Where are you, Tam?
Well, I'm not far from you right now, but I'm off. Oh, really? Yeah. Did you see the auroras last night?
Actually, I looked for them. I couldn't see them. I was out. Okay. They were there. They were there. Yeah.
I was looking to the north sky. I didn't catch it. We were semi-overcast. I'm hoping to see them tonight.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was actually out in the middle of the night because I had a dog with a stomach issue.
But, you know, I think that, you know, this is a big thing, you know, 100 and oh, geez, 75 years ago, approximately.
I'm guessing I have to look. But the Carrington event occurred.
And the Carrington event was a major geophysical storm. Solar wind slammed into the planet, coronal mass ejection.
And the telegraph lines caught fire. Oh, really? And there are stories about piles of newspapers catching fire.
I don't know if that's true or not. I'm trying to figure that one out. Yeah. But unless they were wired up. Yeah, right.
But there were the auroras were to the Caribbean. Oh, okay. Yeah.
And if we were hit, you know this from your work, by something like that, a G4 plus X giant X flare today, we would be in a lot of trouble.
Oh, boy. Our grid instantly. Yeah. We wouldn't have cloud. We wouldn't have cellular communications.
Anything with wires would be that's connected would be out. Yeah. The kids alone would probably cause a revolution because they. Oh, I'm sure they would.
I'm sure they would. And that's one of the reasons I'm saying, okay, if we're going to invest in our grid, let's do it perspicaciously, because I have another podcast say there is no reason to build a house today that's connected to the grid.
There's no right. Right. And we could run entire communities on micro grids and in case of natural disasters and climate effects and everything else, the communities function.
Sure. Sure. And well, I've got to go in a couple of minutes. I don't know if that answered all your questions.
Oh, that's great. We'll do it again soon. Yeah, it absolutely did. I appreciate it. Yeah. Maybe I think we're both all three of us rather are interested in beyond technology.
Right. I mean, you know, what else do we have to do? Technology really is never the problem. Right. It is what you do with the technology. And of course, everybody's raving over Oppenheimer, the movie, you know, and now one way or the other.
How did that happen? Well, human beings did that, you know, it was it wasn't Albert Einstein that caused that. Well, you knew the term.
And unfortunately, CNN says, oh, Oppenheimer invented the atomic bomb and no, he didn't. 100,000 people did that. Sure. Sure. Well, this was great. I'm glad you're alive and well.
And look, look for it. Look for it thriving there and any more. I'd love to do more with you there. Sure. And if you have any ideas, please send it to me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Yeah.