White Collar, Green Flame - A Technothriller

by Shain Carter

  The corrosion issue clearly disqualified green flame compounds as fuels for jet airplanes. Their use would have required the entire exhaust systems to be replaced after each flight. Even single use applications, such as rocket engines, were ruled out as the catastrophic consequences of exhaust nozzle failure far outweighed the benefits of using these fuels.

  The circumstances surrounding the use of green flame compounds as rocket fuels had all the markings of a typical Dawson Jones success story. Here was an area where others had tried and failed. It was also, at the time, an area of great potential importance. Jones was writing his research proposal immediately after the Columbia disaster, and in its wake the US space shuttle program underwent an unprecedented project review. While the overriding concern was safety, for a time every aspect of the program was open to change. And since green flame fuels had the potential of significantly increasing shuttle payload capacity, this seemed an especially ripe area for work - but only if the corrosion issue could be overcome.

  Dawson felt confident that he could solve this problem. A number of advances in materials science had been made in the years since the military program had been abandoned. Based on these developments Dawson was certain that a corrosion resistant nozzle could be fabricated from ceramic oxides. That left a lot of development work still to be done on the green flame compounds themselves. The more Jones studied the issue, the more he was drawn to it.

  Dawson’s research proposal was well received. After a whirlwind tour of university campuses, Dawson accepted the offer from SCU. Their chemistry department was not as well established as some of the others, but Jones was impressed by their commitment to growth. He felt a certain vitality there, a contagious excitement in their quest to become world-class. Their offer of associate professorship with immediate tenure clinched the deal, and that summer Dawson left the Woolf group and began his ambitious green flame program at SCU.

  After he left NETI, Dawson‘s work there continued under Erik Kyle, as had been agreed. Following up on Jones’ preliminary results, Kyle discovered a revolutionary new method for etching the surfaces of semiconductors. When his sabbatical year ended Kyle stayed on with Woolf and together they perfected a fabrication unit that transformed their theoretical laboratory findings into a commercial reality. The fabrication unit was widely licensed to computer chip manufacturers and generated a significant income for NETI and for the inventors themselves. While no longer in use, the Woolf-Kyle method of photo-etching chips was an essential stepping stone in the development of the high-capacity memory units used in today’s supercomputers.

  The scientific importance of their development was recognized as quickly as its commercial importance. Just three years after announcing their findings, Kyle and Woolf won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. They shared the prize with Luther Schwartz, a professor at the Heidelberg Institute. The Nobel selection committee officially cited Schwartz for his work on enzyme reactivity, but the prize was widely recognized as a lifetime achievement award for a man who had made significant contributions to a number of diverse areas of chemical research. For Schwartz, who was in his late eighties and in failing health, the excitement of winning the prize proved too much. He collapsed and died three days after the award ceremony.

  The exact process for choosing Nobel laureates is a closely guarded secret. The selection committee is, however, bound by a few written rules. Among them are that the recipient be living and that each award be shared by no more than three individuals or organizations. Over the years a great many people told Dawson that he surely would have shared the prize had Schwartz died before, rather than after, the ceremony. Woolf himself agreed and had taken pains in his acceptance address to specifically acknowledge the pivotal role Dawson had played by solving a series of seemingly intractable problems. “Over the course of several years,” Woolf stated, “we varied every conceivable reaction parameter - temperature, contact time, raw materials, and so on. We tried everything, and to no avail. At last I had the flash of inspiration that resolved all of these problems.” Woolf paused for effect. “I varied the graduate student.”

  Publicly, Dawson’s response to speculations that, had it not been for Schwartz, he too would have shared the prize, was always the same. He downplayed the possibility, graciously insisting that Schwartz was well deserving of the award. Besides, he pointed out, Nobel selection committees are notorious for their reluctance to give graduate students credit for their contributions. Even had Schwartz not shared the prize, Jones maintained, it was highly unlikely that he would have been recognized by the committee.

  Privately, however, Dawson’s reaction was quite different. In the years following Woolf’s award Dawson could not stop thinking about how close he had come. His despair was compounded by the fact that his fortunes after leaving NETI could not have been more different than those of Woolf and Kyle. They saw their stars rise rapidly. Dawson, on the other hand, saw his crash to the ground and burn.

  Dawson produced useful results during his first few years at SCU, but at a much slower pace than he had expected. The lab took over six months to set-up, and even more time was needed to train the new graduate students. Then, after a brief period of progress, research ground to a halt. Dawson and his students had developed efficient, high yield procedures for synthesizing organoboranes, but they could not accurately measure burn rates. Burn rate curves are critical to the design of engine combustion chambers, and the instruments used to measure burn rates for conventional fuels could not handle the more powerful organoboranes.

  Dawson rose to the challenge, designing from scratch a versatile new instrument that could measure organoborane burn rates. However, this took time - nearly a year of false starts and blind alleys. With the technical issues finally behind them, the Jones group synthesized and characterized over a dozen new organoboranes. The data they gathered clearly showed that no single organoborane would work adequately, so Dawson began testing mixtures of up to four different compounds. After a few months he identified several promising fuel blends.

  While Dawson was able to deal with the technical hurdles, although more slowly than he wished, he was completely unprepared for the political obstacles that he would encounter when he tried to apply his results to the space shuttle program. NASA was, by then, back to business as usual. The Presidential task team assigned to investigate the Columbia disaster had completed their work and concluded that the program suffered no serious deficiencies. Safety would be given a higher priority, but no substantive changes were advocated.

  Dawson was still convinced that the shuttle could benefit enormously from green flame fuels and he doggedly pursued application of his research with his NASA contacts. For their part, however, the NASA engineers that would be in charge of designing a new engine capable of using green flame fuels had lost all interest. Their current engines performed adequately, and the risk of trying a new technology ran counter to the bureaucratic mentality of the organization. They reasoned that if, after expending considerable resources to design the new engine, the program failed, then their careers would suffer. On the other hand, if they succeeded in developing the new engine, then Jones, and not the engineers, would get all the credit. They felt that they were taking all the risks and Jones would reap all the benefits.

  Dawson’s contacts at NASA moved on to other programs with relative ease. Things were not so simple for Dawson, though. Having committed so much time to green flame fuels he could ill afford to drop the program. But the only way for it to succeed now was for him to find a new outlet for these fuels. In practical terms this meant partnering with a different rocket manufacturer - a private company, say, or the Europeans or Asians. They were all tentatively interested, but refused to fund the program until it was proven out. This left Dawson in a Catch-22 situation - in order to get these other agencies to tackle the problem of engine development, he had to prove the fuels would work. And, of course, this could not be done without the appropriate engines.

  Dawson was will
ing and eager to rise to the challenge. But at this point he experienced a rapid and vicious cycle of funding loses. He needed to educate himself on rocket design and build an engine program from scratch, and this would require significant additional funding. Yet without committed partners, the granting agencies refused to extend his existing grants, let alone give him new ones.

  His home life grew equally tumultuous. He began drinking and staying away from home, becoming distant from his wife just when she wanted to start a family. They argued constantly about everything, important or not. He had even moved out for a trial separation when, with the suddenness that can only come from unexpected death, she was gone. Her death was a great blow to Dawson, who was now rudderless, blindly navigating the stormy and, for him, uncharted seas of failure and self-doubt.

  Soon the only grants Jones could get were for instrument support. The burn rate analyzer that he had developed turned out to be very useful for characterizing chemical waste that was to be incinerated. Dawson was funded to provide a service to the waste disposal industry - to measure the burn rates for samples that they sent to him - rather than to do fundamental research of his own.

  This left Jones’ research group in a tenuous position. Graduate students are expected to use their time for basic research rather than for routine operation of existing equipment, and without research funding it was impossible for Dawson to attract and hold new students. It was at this time that Burt Singleton arrived at SCU. Burt spent most of his time simply running the burn rate analyzer and forwarding the results back to the sample submitters. The only actual research he did was to make minor improvements to the analyzer itself. It was for this work, limited as it was, that Burt was awarded his doctorate.

  Jones lack of success did not go unnoticed by the department. Frank Tilden - the man who had brought Jones to SCU with tenure - was especially displeased with how things had turned out and was eager to get rid of Jones and replace him with a young, more productive prospect. However, since Jones had been given tenure when he joined SCU, the department was quite limited in their response to his poor performance. Jones was given a heavy teaching load, all at the introductory, non-major level. Jones enjoyed teaching higher level courses, to students who were interested and cared about the subject matter, but despised teaching these introductory courses to disinterested undergraduates. At SCU all science and engineering majors were required to take a two-semester Introductory Chemistry course, and the vast majority suffered through these classes under Jones.

  For the department, forcing these classes on Dawson accomplished two goals. First, it relieved other professors of this necessary but unpleasant and time-consuming chore. This helped the department attract other outstanding junior faculty members, who at other schools would have been required to teach these classes. The irony that his drudge work made it possible to lure high caliber faculty members who, by comparison, made Jones’ performance look all the weaker, was not lost on Jones.

  And this worked nicely towards department’s second goal - to make life for Dawson so unpleasant that he’d voluntarily leave the University. In fact, a series of actions along these lines had been undertaken over the years, always after careful review by the university legal department. The difficulty was finding something that would push Jones out the door without being so outrageous as to give him a viable wrongful-dismissal lawsuit.

  Jones, for his part, wasn't going anywhere, despite the fact that he hated the job and the department. He particularly despised the way that, for the last fifteen years, he had been treated like a problem that had to be dealt with. In doing that the department took away all of Jones’ independence and sense of worth. They slowly took away all of his departmental grant money, eventually shutting down any hope of resuming research. They told him which classes to teach with no choices as to course content. And they kept him under a microscope, waiting for any infraction they could use to justify his dismissal.

  Jones stayed on, despite these problems, for the simple reason that he had to. At his age, and with his history, he would be completely unable to get a job anywhere else. And while not great, the pay at SCU was more than enough to keep him going. Jones knew that only an ethics violation could get him fired, and he was too smart to do anything that he couldn't defend in front of the ethics board. He didn’t go into the laboratory drunk, didn’t fool around with the female students, didn’t make racially offensive remarks. He even went so far as to award himself - anonymously - a small grant every year to pay for the bottles of alcohol he took from the stockroom and drank in his office. SCU would not be able to fire him for petty theft. Whether they liked it or not, they were just as stuck with Jones as he was with them.

  Chapter Eight

  Jones rose the next morning at six, despite having slept poorly. He found his way down to the dining room, where a breakfast buffet was already waiting. Dawson filled his plate with pancakes and omelets, then, following the butler’s suggestion, carried them to a patio behind the house. The patio looked out onto a hundred yards of perfectly manicured, gently sloping lawn that ended at a small pond. An aspen grove stood on rougher ground on the far side of the pond. In the distance, black clouds hung threateningly over the snow-covered peaks of the faraway mountains. But here, at the lower elevations, the sun was shining brightly. Dawson took in several deep breaths of the clean air before sitting at a small table and beginning his breakfast.

  Ted and Meredith, their plates filled, came out just as Dawson was finishing. Dawson was in no mood for conversation and after exchanging greetings excused himself and walked out into the yard. He wandered down to the pond and sat on the shore, facing the mountains. He tried to enjoy the serenity of the morning, but his thoughts kept returning to Derek’s presentation the day before.

  After a few minutes the high pitched shouts of children drifted down from the house. Turning, Dawson saw Andy and Cindy racing to the pond. Once there they ignored him and concentrated instead on throwing rocks into the water. At first they held a contest to see who could throw the farthest, but then they began skipping the stones across the smooth surface. After a few minutes they fell to arguing. Dawson decided he had had enough of the children’s noise and stood to return to the house. Before he could leave, though, Andy called out to him.

  “Hey, Professor, wait a minute! We want you to be the judge of who can skip the best.”

  Dawson mumbled that he didn’t care to get involved in their argument, but Andy persisted.

  “It’ll just take a second,” he pleaded.

  “Yeah, Professor,” Cindy joined in, tugging Dawson’s arm. “Sometimes I can get three skips but Andy says he won’t believe me until he hears it from an adult.”

  “I don’t believe you ‘cause it’s not true,” Andy countered. “You think you’re better than me just ‘cause you’re older.”

  “I think I’m better than you because I am. Besides, you think you’re better just because you’re a boy.”

  Dawson held up his hands. “Come on, kids, calm down. We can settle this on the pond.” The children squealed in delight and resumed skipping stones with fresh enthusiasm. Dawson had not been watching the children closely before, and now, after just a few throws, he quickly realized that the kids knew very little about stone skipping. Cindy’s throws rarely skipped even once, while Andy’s best effort was only a double skip. Dawson knelt and rummaged among the rocks. Andy and Cindy paused, watching Dawson closely. He chose a large, flat stone, stood, and skipped it seven times across the entire width of the pond and up onto the far bank.

  Andy stared in amazement. “Awesome, Professor! How’d you do that?”

  “Yeah,” Cindy joined in, “show us!”

  Dawson smiled. “Sure.”

  The three knelt and began picking through rocks. Dawson showed them how to choose a good stone, how to hold it and how to throw it. He stressed the importance of spinning the stone fast and even explained in simple terms the physics behind a good skip.

  The chil
dren listened attentively. To their great pleasure the results of Dawson’s teachings were immediate. Within a few tries Andy was able to skip a stone four times, and Cindy could routinely get five skips. As for Dawson, he was surprised at how quickly they caught on and delighted when Cindy peppered him with insightful questions about the principles of stone skipping.

  Dawson was so thoroughly engrossed with the children and their stone skipping that he had completely forgotten about Derek and his interceptor craft. The spell was broken, though, when Dawson heard Burt call his name. Dawson turned and, glancing at his watch, was surprised to see that he had been at the pond for nearly an hour.

  Burt stood on the patio, waving his arm wildly. Ted and Meredith were still there, and both Derek and Alec were out now as well. Dawson walked briskly up the hill to the house. The sun had climbed well above the horizon, and by all indications it was going to be a hot day. The air was definitely warmer now than it had been earlier, and the combination of heat, humidity and thin air caused Dawson to breathe heavily and sweat.

  Dawson was halfway up the hill when Burt trotted down toward him. When they met, Burt asked in a low voice, “Well, did you think about it? Have you reconsidered?”