BASS_4: Low-Risk/Astronomical-Payoff Hi-Tech Venture Opportunity

As submitted to the INE for posting by Robert Bass.
Email from Bob Bass to Don A. Baker, et.al., August 21, 2000.

From:   Bass, Robert W (IDS)
Sent:   Monday, August 21, 2000 10:49 PM
To:     'Don A. Baker'; 'Leaf Turner'; 'Tom Claytor'; 'Warren F. Miller'; 'Gary 
Doolin'
Cc:     'Brian D. Josephson'; 'Dr. Pedro Macedo'; 'Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal'; 
'Michael Mansell'; 'Ron Evans'; 'Shelby Brewer'; 'Shlomo Sternberg'; 'Yeong E. 
Kim'; 'Steve Zelditch'; 'Michael E. Paulaitis'; 'Richard C. Henry'; 'Robert 
Park'; 'Douglas Morrison'; 'P. James E. Peebles'; 'Scott Chubb'; 'Sir Arthur C. 
Clarke'

Subject: Low-Risk/Astronomical-Payoff Hi-Tech Venture Opportunity

To: Corporate Executive [name deleted]

From: R.W. Bass [both my addresses are at bottom]
Subject:  A high-tech investment opportunity with a visibly astronomical payoff-
potential (& arguably low risk)

John,

Thanks for taking the time to hear my story.  The bottom line is that I have a 
highly-reputable friend at Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) who is willing to 
consider doing an experiment in the "high-risk, potential high-payoff" category, 
for ~$100K as partial funding [proposal would be for a Cooperative R&D Activity 
(CRADA), in which LANL would share in the cost, and the result would be 
published in a scientific journal and thereby placed in the public domain], to 
prove that it is possible to produce a [pressure-ionized, _not_ temperature-
ionized!!] Plasma in the state of a liquid metal, or self-cohesive Liquid 
Metallic Plasmoid (LMP).  This was demonstrated in a _self-destructive_ 
experiment that was presented in a sequence of photos on the cover of J. Applied 
Physics about Oct. 1957 by Nitro-Nobel Laureate Melvin Cook.  My late friend Dr. 
Jay Blauer (internationally reputable in the fields of both Shock Tube research 
and High-Energy Chemical Laser research at Rockwell Rocketdyne) helped me to 
plan an experiment to replicate Cook's accidential discovery in a controllable 
way that can be studied and put to a useful purpose as the first step in 
creating a solid, Meta-Stable crystalline form of Hydrogen, or Deuterium, or 
Helium (all of which are naturally gases).  These 3 Meta-Stable (MS) crystals I 
call MSP [Protium or hydrogen], MSD [Deuterium or heavy-hydrogen], and MSH 
[Helium].

The credibility of my proposal is enhanced by the fact that on the Cover of the 
May issue of Scientific American there is a huge headline about "Metallic 
Hydrogen" with a subtitle "Fusion Fuel," about work at Lawrence Livernore 
National Lab (LLNL) although in my opinion this publicity is just an echo of a 
talk I gave a year ago in Washington, D.C. at the Conference on Future Energy 
(CoFE). I suspect LLNL of trying to cash in on my idea (which they have been 
caught red-handed in doing to small companies in the recent past, as showed in a 
Congressional Investigation of how LLNL deliberately got large companies to pay 
them for something which they knew that a small company had already patented 
[UWB {ultra- wideband} communication technology]).

There are extreme differences between what I am trying to get funded at, say, 
LANL, and what LLNL is currently touting.

In the first place, LLNL only produced Metallic Protium and Metallic Deuterium 
for a nano-second in a self-destructive apparatus that was triggered by firing a 
shell at 16,000 mph at a target! (This hypervelocity shell, which is fast enough 
to go into orbit, had to be fired in a near-vacuum to eliminate air resistance, 
so LLNL used a multistage gas gun developed for other purposes.)

In the second place, LLNL only produced Liquid _Metallic_ Deuterium whereas I am 
proposing to demonstrate fully ionized Deuterium _PLASMA_ in the state of a 
Liquid Metal.  (I am an internationally recognized expert in the subject of 
energy from deuterium _plasmas_ in Controlled Thermonuclear Reactors as you can 
verify by looking up the BYU Topolotron in the book on  Fusion Reactors by 
Hagler & Kristiansen, the book on Fusion Research by T. Dolan, and the book on 
Fusion Energy by R. Roth; I was the principal inventor of this patented 
invention [the Patent has now expired] whose Patent Number is cited by Roth, who 
implies that it was unjustly neglected by the DoE for political rather than 
technical reasons.)

It is obvious that LLNL is now just trying to latch onto my coat-tails because 
they give no inkling of how they would make deuterium into a solid metal that 
would stay solid at room-temperature and room-pressure!!

However, my equations of the Laser Spark effect (in my issued Patent on the 
Plasmasphere  --  which expires in about a year) and which were checked by Dr. 
John Bryner of U of Utah, show not only how to create an LMP of any gas, but 
that the LMP will _shrink_ if levitated magnetically in a cryogenic vacuum 
chamber and allowed to cool radiatively to room temperature, at some point in 
which process the LMP will crystallize into a solid metallic crystal  --  but 
NOT a crystal of atomic-ions & electrons, but a crystallized _plasma_ of bare 
nuclei & electrons. Such a material has never before existed, but there is a 
large professional literature in highly "respectable" journals about MSH 
(MetaStable Helium) as the ideal rocket propellant (if it could be 
manufactured).

A crystal of MSH, when triggered by the right frequency of laser light, will 
return explosively to the superheated plasma & then [recombined] gaseous state, 
releasing the _same_ energy as if it had been compressed into a solid by 10 
million atmospheres pressure! Solid MSH will release 43 times more energy per 
unit weight than the best known chemical propellant-combination or high-
explosive (and is half-way between chemistry and atomic energy, but without any 
radioactivity problems).

It has been computed that if MSH were available as a rocket propellant, NASA 
could send a manned spaceship to Mars and back in two weeks (avoiding 
weighlessness by accelerating at one gee for half the trip and decelerating for 
the second half before arrival at Mars), carrying a 50% payload!  This would 
make the solar system humanity's back yard!

The Air Force in 1986 was going to give out 8 parallel "crash" projects to see 
if MSH could be manufactured in bulk (because a team of 7 USAF colonels with 
doctorates in the physical & engineering sciences who had scoured the USA for 9 
months, in groups of two and three, listening to 600 academic & industrial 
presentations about futuristic technology, reported to General Marsh that of all 
developments on the horizon in 1985 that would have the biggest military impact 
and biggest impact on the national economy by the year 2,000, the idea from 
JPL's Dr. Zmuidzinas of making MSH was in the small handful of very _highest_ 
priority possibilities).  However, Princeton U physics professor Will Happer 
"annihilated" Zmuidzinas in a public "peer review" according to an eye-witness 
who told me that Happer was "almost sadistic" about it, and therefore the Air 
Force Rocket Propulsion lab canceled all 8 contracts, including mine. Now they 
are "ashamed" to remember MSH and act like they had nearly bought a UFO story!

But this same Will Happer told me to my face in 1991 that "if Admiral Watkins is 
wrong about Cold Fusion, then I'll take the heat, because I am his principal 
scientific advisor!"

However, the past 11 years has _proven_ Happer mistaken about Cold Fusion (see 
the book by Beaudette, ad attached).

Logically, if Happer was mistaken about Cold Fusion in 1989 he could have been 
equally mistaken about MSH in 1987!!!

Supposing that the Blauer-Bass "Proof of Principle Prototype" demo that I want 
to fund at a reputable lab (a friend at SRI said that they would do it if LANL 
declines) works on helium, then the Air Force would reinstate their MSH-as-
rocket-fuel program and obviously NASA would then want it too, for their 
envisioned manned-exploration of Mars project (but soon, rather than decades in 
the future).

But then, the same process could be used to produce MSP which a recent paper in 
Phys. Rev. Letters says would be the IDEAL room-temperature Superconductor (that 
would revolutionize both electronics and the electric power industry).

Also, for reasons given in the Summary of my invited paper to the American 
Nuclear Society's meeting in Washington, D.C. in November, attached, solid MSD 
would be the IDEAL Cold Fusion fuel, that would make all other fuels obsolete.  
(There is enough heavy-hydrogen in a gallon of ordinary water, and it can be 
extracted for less than 3 cents, to produce the energy equivalent of more than 
300 gallons of gasoline; moreover, the Cold Fusion reaction is aneutronic and is 
environmentally benign: the "fuel" is water and the "ash" is harmless, inert, 
useful helium or "balloon gas.")

Therefore if the Blauer-Bass experiment works, it will lead to the bulk-process 
manufacture of 3 new materials (MSH, MSP and MSD) each of which addresses a 
_separate_ trillion-dollar market!

I am looking for a Venture Capitalist who would throw down the dice in a ~$100K 
crapshoot if he were assured by reputable scientists that they dice are "loaded" 
with a 95% probability of success and if true success were guaranteed to pay off 
in Billion$ rather than Million$. The 3 new products (MSH, MSP, MSD) are 
patentable [and I am licensed to practice Intellectual Property Law before the 
US PTO] and will have zero "market penetration risk," though admittedly there is 
a slight technical risk.  This is the exact opposite of what traditional VCs 
want to hear.  They want zero technical risk and are willing to bear market-
penetration risk (because they understand and can cope with it).  To take a 
slight "scientific" risk frightens them.  But when the payoff is so 
astronomical, it is a rational bet.

Sincerely,

Bob Bass

Registered Patent Agent 29,130
Rhodes Scholar (Md./D.C. & Wadham, 1950-52)
Ph.D. (math), Johns Hopkins, 1955
named "Outstanding Young Scientist of 1960" by Maryland Academy of Science
named "Fusion Scientist of 1994" by Fusion Info Center
honored by 2-hr. Special Session of ACC in 1998
[see appended Resume for other achievements & awards]

==============================================/
Dr. Robert W. Bass  
45960 Indian Way (#612)
Lexington Park, MD 20653
   (301) 866-9657; FAX .../9674
==============================================|
Dr. Robert W. Bass
Engineer III
Identification Systems Department
BAE SYSTEMS
44414 Pecan Court
California, MD 20619
Phone: (301) 863-0687
FAX:      (301) 863-0755
e-mail: robert.w.bass@baesystems.com
==============================================/
Return to the Robert Bass TOC Page