Slashdot Mirror
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."
Several SF authors have predicted that electronics manufacturing would eventually move to space because it'd be easier to produce purer semiconductor crystals in microgravity. Maybe the time has come?
This article is a perfect example of the sort of technological advances that will be possible when we establish a space habitat capable of sustaining industrial production. Microgravity is a condition that is almost impossible to replicate here at the bottom of the gravity well, and we are just beginning to realize the applications.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I can see this as being a new field of manufacturing in the not so distant future. Imagine zero-gravity precision made materials and parts for a variety of uses. We could make better lenses for microscopes and telescopes as an example.
;)
If you're smart, you'll start a company to capitalize on this future market
Is it easier to purify carbon nanotubes in microgravity too? Space elevator anyone?
11 1101 1011111 0100 000 110 1011111 0101 10 01 1011111 101 1 011 1011111 0 1111 11 111 1011111 101
What's really needed from space manufacturing is the tools to continue space exploration. For truely state of the art space stuff the drop-out rate of parts is near 50% that you have to make to get enough usable ones.. that number's gotta get way down. Not to mention were're starting to make the technology leap from cutting parts out of blocks of stuff to steering the building of the momlecules that make up stuff... there's not the facilities on earth to do that economicaly
"He did some glass-melting experiments, trying to pull thin fibers out of melts," recounts Day. "During the low-gravity portion of the plane's flight, when g was almost zero, the fibers came out with no trouble. But during the double-gravity portion of the plane's flight, the fiber that he was pulling totally crystallized."
Like, totally, dude.
I guess "that" generation finally made it to the real world.
-Adam
One of the space products has been Microspheres several magnitudes more precise than those made on earth. Other of the NASA Microgravity projects can lead directly to ultrapure chip development for use in, for example, pinhead size medical and scientific gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers.
Because the microgravity should allow for high chip yield and high quality, the remaining issue is cost of production.
Allowing for $10,000 per Kg (source) for a mature launch/return system like the Saturn 5, Delta, or Titan series, a 100 Kg furnace containing 10 Kg of product would cost $1,000,000 to orbit. If the output is 0.01 gram chips at 95% yield, that gives you 950,000 chips. If you can sell them for a bit over $1.05 per chip, you're in the money. At only $5000/Kg, you are way ahead!
The medical market alone for $5-10 one-shot broad spectrum biochemical testers would easily absorb the 10 million-plus that could be produced with monthly launches.
1. Insert sample into tester
2. Plug tester into USB/Firewire port
3. Read results from software support package
4. (Profit!)
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
Glass blowery is an art form that all true geeks should appreciate. It combines the best of chemistry with the best of blowery and some of the most complex mathematics. Indeed, using fairly advanced physics, calculus and fluid dynamics it is possible to blow shapes such as the Archimedes spiral and the Lagrange multiloop. While most traditional glass blowers do not have the mathematics or physics background necessary to calculate the algorithm to blow awe inspiring shapes, most geeks do. It's too bad that more geeks aren't into the art form. Their talents could lead to fantastic, abstract creations!
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
The latter sounds like something my company helped work on. The medicine is encapsulated in microscopic beads, which are then injected into the bloodstream. You then image the region of interest with ultrasound. When you have it focused where you want it, hit the button, the frequency changes, bubbles shatter, and medicine is delivered precisely where you want it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I'd draw a difference between two films: The Terminator and Terminator 2. The Terminator counts more as sci-fi to me. It's about "what happens if?" and explores what unfolds from there. Terminator 2 is basically an action movie with some tech thrown in (albeit a very entertaining one).
Sci-fi at it's best imagines a world after some science arrives, and how it would impact. Take teleportation. If someone worked out how to do it, what happens to the transport industry? What happens to expensive city real estate?
One of the most demanding applications of optics technology is for use in microchip manufacture.
One important limiting factor in the creation of smaller and smaller microchips is the lenses used to etch the designs in the silicon. Even with the most advanced lenses, the designs can still be blurry, making the error rate in very small process chips rather high.
No doubt this industry could benifit extremely from very clear and pure glass such as this.