Very neat!
My hydrogen balloon operations were always based on quantity and not quality. I wrapped cold wet rags around the necks of the plastic bottles that I used to help condense the steam and also had extra bottles that were rotated in and out of production to give the lye solution a chance to cool.
I tipped over bottles on more than one occasion and ruined a couple of pairs of pants but always had a charged garden hose nearby, so I never received a serious chemical burn.
This was during the early 1970s and when we were still in a cyclic cold spell. The glaciers on Mt. Rainier had been growing. The Nisqually glacier actually took out the bridge that led up to the Paradise Visitor Center. My favorite science teacher took students up to the Carbon Glacier each year and we measured it’s advance down the mountain with survey equipment.
At that time scientists were predicting the possibility of a new ice age. We were using the data that the teacher had collected over the previous years to estimate how long it would be until the bridge that led to the Campground, we hiked from would likely be wiped out.
But as we all know now from the warming hysteria the cold trend was cyclic. It was a surprise to me when the cyclic warming trend that started in the 1980s has been used to justifying spending Trillions of dollars to reverse what will almost certainly be a cyclic trend as well. I feel lucky to have had instructors that were trying to teach us something rather than indoctrinate us.
I was fortunate to attend lectures from Geology Professor Don Easterbrook my first year out of high school when I went to Western Washington University. This was long before Global Warming Hysteria took hold. Partially because of my science teachers in Junior High and High School I had developed an interest in Geology.
Approximately 10,000 years ago a flash in geologic time, the land that our house sits on was covered by approximately half a mile of ice. Attempts are now even being made to distort the Geologic record for political purposes. Unfortunately, persons who have opinions and knowledge that contradict the narratives of the left such as Professor Easterbrook find themselves villainized and forced out of their positions.
The Magnetic Reversals is interesting when considered with the weakening magnetic field and rapid migration of the poles in the present day. Those nifty auroral displays are a consequence of the weakening magnetic field. The hotter/colder/more violent patterns of weather in recent years is also a "gift" of a weakening magnetic field. Read the books and observe the consequences in the present day.
Robert's work inspired Ben Davidson who ran the Suspicious 0bservers site. Ben has done some excellent scholarly work in the years since Robert passed. Unfortunately, Ben announced some troubles in the teepee tonight with a pending divorce that will probably derail the good work he and his wife have done over the past few years.