Glass In Spaaaaace

AnKsT wrote to mention an article on NASA's site about creating and manipulating glass in space. From the article: "In microgravity...you don't need a container. In Day's initial experiments, the melt--a molten droplet about 1/4 inch in diameter--was held in place inside a hot furnace simply by the pressure of sound waves emitted by an acoustic levitator. With that acoustic levitator, explains Day, 'we could melt and cool and melt and cool a molten droplet without letting it touch anything.' As Day had hoped, containerless processing produced a better glass. To his surprise, though, the glass was of even higher quality than theory had predicted."

Comments

Mr. Day? more Mr. Dooms Day

[CrazyJim1]

The only reason he wants to create glass in space is to one day fashion a giant magnifying glass in space. After calibrating it on ants, he plans to bring the world to its knees.

What a relief!

[ScaryMonkey]

It's a good thing they figured out a way to make glass in space. Maybe now they come overcome the titanic production hurdles involved with producing glass here on Earth, and bring down its astronomic cost.

Re:Purer carbon nanotubes too?

[PakProtector]

Is it easier to purify carbon nanotubes in microgravity too?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeees.

(Note: Length and pitch of the Long Answer may be affected by answerer's velocity relative to yourself.)