Slashdot Mirror
New Technique for Creating Nanotube Sheets
Quetzalcoatl writes "A team of researchers has come up with a way to make strong, stable sheets of multiwall nanotubes at a rate of seven meters per minute. These sheets already display a number of remarkable qualities that lend them to many different applications, including artificial muscles, transparent antennas, video displays and solar cells."
Dupe.
No Flash Photography of the nanotubes please.
They will explode.Two Roommates and a Boyfriend, updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Now our soldiers can have shortages of nanotube underwear - yay! Nanotube condoms anybody?
"The server's on fire!
It's more than I can handle"
Jeez...there's what.. (looks at file size) a 6.7MB video of this?
And it's a dupe!
Bravo! I genuflect in the direction of Slashdot, honoring its unlimited power to bring fear and loathing into the hearts of system administrators everywhere!
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BMO ++ ATH0 NO CARRIER
I don't care. My Karma Is Bigger Than Yours
46 hours and 34 minutes, surely this has got to be getting close to a duping record
Blackmailing sysadmin with threat of slashdotting - $10,000
Posting the article twice after he pays up - Priceless
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
It's amazing what science is doing nowadays. First we're applauding the efforts of one group's efforts to create a new technique to make nanotube sheets, and only a few days later a NEW technique comes by! Fantastic!
Good-Tutorials
The problem with the foam is that Nasa loves to leave the shuttle outside for days with an unstable foam (suspectable from sun hardening/creating cracks, soaking up moisture from the atmosphere which then freezes, widening the cracks). The temperature difference between outside and inside of the foam can reach about 100Kelvin. If they would shield it from the sun, do not drive it out to early and keep it nicely aircoed and conditioned, the foam will probably stay better. If really good aircoed, or with more accurate launch windows, the foam might not bee needed at all.
Adding a protective net around the just described properties of the foam, will makes you run the risk that the foam will really behave bad. The foam could instead of fail in pieces fail as a whole, causing this ultra strong net to fly around in un unpredictable way.
Adding the net not around the foam but instead around the shuttle will take care that shuttle arrives in one piece in space. The material however is not heat proof. It will fail under high temperature, actually the outside of the space shuttle is a "controlled" failure, in which after several flights certain parts are replaced. If your net fails on the way back, the shuttle can still loose the vital tiles and not land in one part.
Your idea is not a bad one, and does not need a superhightech foam perse. Just a flexible PE layer could do the trick. The tank will never gets really hot (it is dumped before that happens, and then burns itself on the way down, nobody cares about that part of the trip). Maybe adding a second wiring in the foam itself with some fiber will help too, it will be more complex though.
Last but not least: this problem is a problem invented by Nasa. The foam would not or be less necessary if Nasa used a different fuel (kerosine like the Russians), or would keep the shuttle in a lower surrounding temperature condition.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me