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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."
And best of all... In space, no one can hear you break the glass.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
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.
God spoke to me.
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?
I wonder how long it will take humans to use this technology to build a better bong. Think about it -- bongs made in space...
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
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.
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.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
"But why is that important? What's wrong with glass made of silica?
For windows silica is just fine. But glass made from other chemical compositions offers a panoply of unexpected properties. For example, there are "bioactive glasses" that can be used to repair human bones. These glasses eventually dissolve when their work is done. On the other hand, Day has developed glasses which are so insoluble in the body that they are being used to treat cancer by delivering high doses of radiation directly to a tumor site."
Cool beans!
It's interesting research, but the manufacturing-in-space argument is weak. This has been used as a justification for the expense of going to orbit with astronauts, and it never rings true to me. Floride glass fiber won't be manufactured more than 100 feet from the surface of the Earth in the forseeable future. Has any of the materials-properties-in-space research has lead to new commercial products?
April 14, 2003... Slashdot is really a frontrunner. Next they'll report that Bush won a second term in office...
Only a few serious answers so far, but do you realize how important this kind of work could be? He has proven a concept. Now it is much more likely for a corperation to invest in space stations to build their products. I'm not saying it'll happen within the next year, but that is it closer. Now corperations will feel the investment is less risky with much more payoff. Can you imagine having your CPU made with the parts so much more pure then they are now? Engineers could build smaller chips because they wouldn't have to account for the impurities that naturally come in the materials.
April 14, 2003 -- In BOLD letters for Jesus "tap-dancing" Christ's sake.
How is this news? I realize the mentality of if I haven't seen it it's new to me, but come on.
Is there an update or something?
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here.
Is it easier to purify carbon nanotubes in microgravity too?
Short answer: yes.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
In microgravity...you don't need a container.
Right. Until there's an accident when someone is too busy playing with their velco stripe and a blob of molten glass goes into someone's eye on the other side of the station. If that happens over the state of California, Cal-OSHA will be all over the space station like Bill Clinton with an intern. They would have to shut down the space program until it was safe go back into space -- again.
And when we get really advanced, Chromium usage will increase as well...
Sponge-Tron: Everything is chrome in the future!
I can see it now, orbital chrome plating factories!
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.)
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
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.
I've never been really impressed with Asimov's rules for robots. They're pretty plainly obvious, but nobody came up with them, because there wasn't any need (there still isn't!)
A: Re-read Asimov and replace "robot" with "artifical intelligence." Or, better yet, "android."
B: Asimov created his rules to tell stories about the rules, including how they were a bad idea. Not to mention that there should be 5, not 3.
1: An android must perform only those tasks which it has been designed to do.
2: (So long as it does not conflict with the above,) An android must obey the commands of its owner.
3: (So long as it does not conflict with the above,) An android must not take any action, or refrain from taking any action, that results in harm to a person.
4: (So long as it does not conflict with the above,) An android must not allow itself or any other object to come to harm.
5: (So long as it does not conflict with the above,) An android must obey the commands of all persons that are not its owner.
While this may seem a bit odd, seeing as how they'd have to get that glass back to Earth without shattering it, they don't need to worry going back to Earth to make profits.
This is the perfect thing for moving spacestations and eventual moon colonization forward. The station and moon have to deal with micro-meteor showers, which don't bother us because the rocks burn up in the atmosphere. Better glass would be a great contribution to these places to put up with the showers without suffering the view- the first private places on the moon will likely be held by the ultra wealthy, and, by golly, they'll want a view! Astronauts would probably thing it's damn skippy, too.
Then, as most good inventions work, as the rich buy it, it eventually becomes cheaper and cheaper until Joe America can sit on his front porch with his friends on the moon and chuck empty beer cans at their super-glass dome without worry, just to watch them 'float' through the air.
Assuming they find an economical way to get the glass to Earth, this can be perfect for deep-sea scientific endevours- glass that will hold up to higher pressures would allow for long time monitoring of underwater ecosystems with less reliance on miniature subs and wetsuits. Perhaps we'll even get talking dolphins.
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.
http://data.engin.umich.edu/umseds/kc135/nanotubes /Y2K/proposal/proposal.htm
In the I, Robot stories, robots were most emphatically designed not to be weapons. Your rules would allow robot weaponry.
I'm not so sure that I, Robot portrays the rules as a "bad idea" but rather a source of inconsistency -- and therefore a source of great story material.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
1- sand requires way less gentle treatment than electronics or humans. Means lesser costs of the rocket. And taking the furnace would cost, but that's one-time expense.
2- yes, from some asteroid. Easy.
3- launch from surface of asteroid - $50.
4- 5ft of hyper-high-quality lenses, nanooptics, etc may be well worth several $mln.
5- fill a rocket with bubblewrap or you'll end up with a lander full of glass shards.
6- profit.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
For those that didn't catch the bait left by the original poster...
Transparent Aluminium is a fictional material from the Star Trek universe.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
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?
"Die Cast Construction it's a lost art."
-Optimus Prime.
Some of you might not remember the Transformer's episode. However it's useful in regards to building in space. Using focused sunlight and magnets you could build space stations and space craft. It would solve the delema mentioned in another article about the aging shuttle fleet. Why carry stuff up, when we can use moon rocks to build it.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
There are space pens.
They weren't created by the American government
The Aremicans originally used pencils as well.
Bits of the pencil can break of.
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