Nasa Aerogel

[Celephais]

Nasa just had their annual Jet Propulsion Lab and there are some neat articles about/from it. The coolest thing I think is this Aerogel, so I thought I would share:

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/aerogel.html

It's a durable solid that looks ethereal and is made of 99.8% air, and it has incredible insulation properties. There are some really cool photos on that link, thought I would share.

[Celephais]

Just so you get an idea:
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/images/gallery/aerogelcrayons.jpg

And here is a link with some info on the Jet Propulsion Lab
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/05/24/jpl_openhouse/
which includes this little guy:
http://www.tgdaily.com/picturegalleries/20060523/jpl6.jpg

[AnticorRifling]

That stuff is aweomse.

Here's a quick breakdown of what it is from that site:

Aerogel is not like conventional foams, but is a special porous material with extreme microporosity on a micron scale. It is composed of individual features only a few nanometers in size. These are linked in a highly porous dendritic-like structure.
This exotic substance has many unusual properties, such as low thermal conductivity, refractive index and sound speed - in addition to its exceptional ability to capture fast moving dust. Aerogel is made by high temperature and pressure-critical-point drying of a gel composed of colloidal silica structural units filled with solvents. Aerogel was prepared and flight qualified at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL also produced aerogel for the Mars Pathfinder and Stardust missions, which possesses well-controlled properties and purity. This particular JPL-made silica aerogel approaches the density of air. It is strong and easily survives launch and space environments. JPL aerogel capture experiments have flown previously and been recovered on Shuttle flights, Spacelab II and Eureca.

[Valthissa]

I found it bizzare that someone would mention aerogel on this forum. It's interesting stuff.

We put a carbon powder opacified hydro-phobic monolithic graphite form of aerogel in a prototype device intended for helicopters. The prototypes are currently in test at Ft. Eustis and we are designing an updated version scheduled for CDR early in June. We expect to make flight test version this fall.

There are a lot of techniques that have to be developed in using the material that run counter to basic composite manufacturing procedures. thankfully, that part of the learning curve is behind us.

Just writing this makes me realize how much I miss being in operations (sigh).

C/Valth

[Tsa`ah]

Looking at the stuff in the first image ... it would make some damn good looking naughty wear.

[Drew]

Aerogel is awesome. We were looking into a way to use it in our speakers a while back but it was just too brittle torsionally.

[Celephais]

I just got this picture in my head of if we decided to build cars out of aerogel, they'd be super lightweight (so really fast and you could even pick them up, stop fast too because hardly any inertia) and being brittle as Drew mentioned I am imagining crashes result in the cars just literally poofing, resulting in drivers suddenly left comically without a car (and being lightweight they would have no real force)

This is how I entertain myself at work.

[Daniel]

I think it would suck pretty bad being hurtled 70 miles per hour down the high way

[Celephais]

That's the funny part... hehehe. But the good part about it is if you crash into a farmers market you are the only one who's going to get hurt :-D

Okay, so we'll combine aerogel cars with demolition man style foam airbags.