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Supplying your government with life's little necessities is a more complicated

business than you might expect

By Barry Zwick

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? If so,' chances are it's a U.S. government

reject. The Defense Department puts it this way in its Specification MIL-C-I0022C.

The flavor of the gum shall be in an amount sufficient'to impart a pleasing characteristic taste sensation. There shall be a primary flood of flavor, and aftel' 20 minutes of chewing, it shall have a residual characteristic flavor. Yes, although bidders on federal con­

tracts might disagree, government specs can be fun. There is, for example, good old Deodorant, General Purpose, Aerosol (P-D-00200b). To pass government stand­ards, it must "show a reduction in total Mal-Odor· Level of at least 80 percent against 4 out of 5 standard Mal-Odors using an Odor Test-Room with a panel of 5 or more Trained Odor Evaluators."

And how do you train an Odor Evalu­ator? You put him "in an Odor Evaluation

52

Laboratory for a period sufficient to enable him to give consistent results in evaluating odor intensity based on an arbitrary inten­sity scale." Once your Odor Evaluators are up to snuff, you deposit them in a 300­cubic-foot Odor Evaluation Chamber. Into the chamber you then introduce:

• Kitchen Mal-Odor, • Tobacco MllJI-Odor, • Body Mal-Odor, • Bathroom Mal-Odor #1, • Bathroom Mal-Odor #2, • Hospital Mal-Odor, and • Occupied Space Mal-Odor. Then you spray the deodorant being

tested into the chamber. If the Trained Odor Evaluators a.gree that there is 80 per­cent less odor after five minutes, you're in business.

You can also supply the government with the odors themselves-aU synthetic, in case you wondered. For instance, you create Bathroom Mal-Odor #1 by mixing 81.82

SCIENCE & MECHANICS

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61 SPECllIt(.. "LA't'OItW

If you don't think you're quite up to supplying a government·issue bedpan with

a "uniform, bright, shiny surface . .. free of rough grind marks, pits and other

imperfections" (top) you might try your hanq at a toilet tissue tester (above).

• percent dipropylene glycol, 21.18 percent mercaptoacetic acid, 6 percent hexanoic acid, 6 percent n-methyl morpholine, 2.18 percent p-cresyl isovalerate, 0.91 percent beta-thionaphthole and 0.91 percent skatole. If you succeed in concoctill!? B'~'-Jroom

Mal-Odor #1, you're quite a wizard: The government's proportion figures add up to 119 percent!

No such prohlem with Bathroom Mal­Odor #2. Ready for the formula, junior chemists? It's 57.5 percent dipropylene gly­col, 30 percent Bathroom Mal-Odor # I . 7.5 percent Kitchen Mal-Odor and 5 per­cent Body Mal-Odor.

You may have noticed that dipropylene glycol was the big winner in both bathroom mal-odors. It also plays a prominent role in Tobacco Mal-Odor, Bady ivlal-Odor and,

SCIENCE & MECHANICS AUGUST, 1973 53

of course, Occupied Space Mal-Odor. since the government formula for Occupied Space Mal-Odor is 90 percent Tobacco Mal-Odor and 10 perce'nt Body Mal-Odor.

It's sad but true that a Trained Odor Evaluator is not welcome in many social circles, particula,rly if he's wearing his work­ing clothes. If this begins to get to him, he can always switch over to the lab where the government tests the GG-S-OO I0 15. That's a Syringe, Fountain, Disposable Enema. What a Trained Enema Syringe Evaluator does with his sample is bounce it. He fills it with 1500 milliliters of water. clamps it shut and drops it from a height of two feet. If it bursts, it's out of the running.

While the Trained Enema Syringe Evalua­tor is shouting "Bombs Away!" his colleagues are cutting up two-inch lengths of tubing from the enema assembly, steeping them in salt water, and cooking the mixture at 235 degrees Fah.renheit for 35 minutes. When the tubing is dissolved, the resulting potion is "injected into each of five healthy mice weighing between 17 and 23 grams." If any of the mice die within 48 hours, "the test shall be repeated with five unused mice" of the same weight. If one of them squeaks his last within 48 hours, the enema syringe is rejected for "toxicity."

Some people have a reaction to mice, unused or otherwise, that calls for Bags, Motion Sickness (PPP-B-23a). How does a Trained Motion Sickness Bag Evaluator test his goodies? He fills them with water. seals them, places 20-pound weights on them and stands guard for two hours. If the bags leak, out they go.

Specifications for the bags don't requil:e that· they be pretty. The same cannot be said of the specs for MIL-S-798B, Supporter Athletic, complete with 4 ... COUNT 'EM!

... 4 pages of drawings. MIL-S-798B wams the manufacturer that his prized un­dergarment will be rejected if it is character­ized by a "pouch badly stretched or puck­ered at curved end of center joining seam, definitely affecting appearance."

If yon think Uncle Sam is demanding the Miss Americas of the jockstrap world, you should hear him on UU-P-556h­Tissues, Toilet: Toilet paper bought by the government must be free of "slivers, shives, holes, splits, tears, breaks, sharp wrinkles or foJds, dirt spots, foreign matter or non­repulped material."

In this strange world of Tissue by Tintoretto, we also have Bedpans by Bot­

54

ticelli: The interior oj-the bedpan shall be fin­ished by means of electropolishing. The filial finish shall be a uniform, bright. shiny surface . .. Bedpans shall be free of rough grind marks, pits, scales and other defects or imperfections. A II sur­faces shall have a slllooth finish ... Welded joints shall be ground and pol­ished to blend with the adjacent sur­faces .. \Vherever there is a. Bedpan, Corrosion­

Resisting Steel (RR-B-191b), there is usu­ally a need for a GGG-S-00850 or Swatter, Fly. Specifically, one which is "used to kill flies, mosquitoes, roaches or other crawling insects." Like other items in the government stockpile, the Swatter, Fly, must be worthy of a pedestal in the Louvre:

A II parIs shall be smoolh and free from flash. rough edges 01' all)' irregularities which lI1a)' afJect appearance. Yes. a thing of beauty is a joy forever.

Especially when it's a Clamp, Circumcision (GG-C-390). This fiendish-looking device, according to the specs; must be lined with satin, soldered with silver and have a mirror finish.

If the kid in the clamp is named Cohen, the occasion will call for i1 MIL-K-43387, Cup, Kiddush, 'To be used in the Jewish Chaplain's portable alter (sic.) set." Judging by the spec writer's spelling, the Jewish Chaplain is a versatile man indeed. And as he raises his Cup, Kiddush, he will observe that:

All solder joints shall be sound. alld \vhere exposed to th,' outside surface. shall he smoothly blended with the Sllr­roundinR al'ea. There shall be no open seall1s and all exposed edges shall be free 0/ burrs or sharp projections. A II plated surfaces shall he free frOI11 im­perfections and weI/-polished. Clearly, when Uncle Sam goes' shopping,

he doesn't fool around. The specifications for as simple. an itC'tll as Soup, Instant, Green Pea. run to 16 pages. And while the recipe is enough to make Julia Child turn over in her tureen, the palatability test is worthy of the Cordon Bleu. Here's how you test Pea Soup a la Pentagon for taste: Give each of 36 tasters two ounces of Brand A pe soup served at J 40 degrees and have each rate Brand A on a 9-point scale. Follow the same procedure all the way to Brand F. Average the ratings, and may the best soup

(Continued on page 94)

SCIENCE & MECHANICS

Fiberglass House (Continued frolll page 45)

that and more. We would pick fiberglass over again if we had to, it's all we expected it to be." 'Nesson enthuses.

Don Seligmann, of Tolland, Conn., is equally zealous: 'The only thing we ever do to our Polyarch home is wash it down when it gets dirty. Our stereo system sounds better than ever, the acoustics are so good."

Dr. Robert Hicks. owner of as-bedroom Polyarch home in B~istol, Coon., raves, "the house should last a thousand years. No more lea·ky roof for us. We already have six kids but jf the family grows we can easily add rooms. When the kids grow up and leave wc can even diminish the house if we want to by simply unbolting a couple of segments."

For those innovators who want to add design elenients of their own, Rudkin-Wiley will cooperat\:, even to the extent of install­ing skylights. portholes or other apertures, say for the chimney of a free' standing fireplace. r orccd-air heating systems work best for the Polyarch house, the supplier advises. Evt.:ntually the company contem­plates in-factory installation of electrical conduits, plumbing, heating units. etc. But for the time being, it was considered advis­able not to step on the toes of local unions who would bc deprived of such work by factory installation.

For further information about the Poly­arch system. send $2 for a full-color brochure to Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 760 Honeyspot Rd., Stratford, Conn. 06497.•

Jim Bede Tells: (Continued fl'ol/1 !Jage 70)

But I'd still break the world's record, which is the main thing, and I'd still know the longer trip can be done.

I keep setting target dates for the flight, but I always set them six months in ad­vance. I've had to call them off because my business just got so big tbat I couldn't do it. When somebody sends yOll money for a set of parts for an airplane they expect to get it right away! But as soon as I think I've got a solid two months free, I'll do it. It does look like a possibility for this fall, really.

What's burning a hole in my pocket now, however, now ·that I've got a good crew and the finances to do it, is the idea of building

94

a much better airplane to do it with. I. would be straight from -scratch. I could u the wings from the BD-2 if J wanted to. but I'd make a whole new fuselage, much more efficient. Then I could get a lift t drag ratio of 35 ,to one, which would do it falling off a log. So I'm kind of torn between the devil and the deep blue sea. You might say, "Ob, no, you don't want to go through all that again, do youT Well. mayhe I do!.

A Be1l . Jockstrap (Continued from page 54)

win. It's a bil m re difficnlt to scrounge up

a 36-member panel to test Tissue, Toilet. Instead. the government has come up with a bizarre little gadget' called a Handle-O­Meter (~ee drawing) especially for that pur­pose. The Handle-O-Meter measures the strength f toilet paper by, in effect, mea­suring the amount of pressure required to rip it up. This the Handle-O-Meter accom­plishes through a relay of weights and counterweights and motors and rheostats and cams and toggle switches and cells and ammeters and penetration beams. Plus a blade. For toilet paper, that means bu iness.

Another ingenious federal device is the Flexing ,Machine, used in the final stages of testing the Supporter, Athletic. But first you must cook the jockstrap for 24 hours in a 212 degree oven, then remove it and let it stand for another 24 hours. Next you stretch the webbing to double its usual len­gth and rack it up that way for another 24 hours. Finally, you place it on the Flex­ing Machine, which will stretch it to ISO percent of its original length and back again 5000 times in one hour. If after all this testing any of the elastic threads in the supporter have broken, destroy it with a MIL-C-3880C-Club, Policeman's.

Government specs and their testing provisions may seem like orgies of trivia to most of us, but they're fountains of loot to Brad Miller of Newport Beach, Calif., who TUns Global Engineering Documenta­tion Services Inc. Global sells specs. The government gives them away for nothing but takes up to six weeks to send them to you; Global charges up to 15 cents per page, but guarantees 24-hour service. Ap­parently the service is much in demand, for Miller expects to make half a million dol­lars this year.

And that ain't (N-H-1216) Hay.• SCIENCE & MECHANICS

Chevy's New C :!

(Contillued from pa :

from double the spe ~.

standard engine. The : ingly flat, varying on'. pound-feet from 300 does all this on fuel or _ ­By way of contrast. the ­engine, which runs n 11.5 to one compre-s' higher.

Under the optio­eludes the whole p~

ed the rest of the \" engine. Its four·­gear ratios, and . diameter ring gea- ­to one. Availab e the Z09 option at both ends of !' e cable for the c li- •_- _ keep it from h0; = turned on.

Chevrolet knows ­is the kind of car t thusiasts, people \\ h sidered buying any division stopped m

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L __ ~~i~/~a.:::.el..:'e~s_

AUGUST, 1973