VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
I've been watching some cool videos today, most about Aerogel. I've never had any personally, but it sure seems like a cool material.
My introduction to it was from looking at videos of Vacuum Balloons. Essentially, you get a lightweight material (and Aerogel is one such thing), make a balloon with it (you'll need some kind of framework to give it shape. You then create a vacuum within the balloon. Once done, the object floats, since it's lighter than air.
From what I can make out, they have some surveillance balloons using this type of thing up there right now. Since it floats, it requires no energy to keep itself up. Essentially, bar some catastrophic failure, it'll just float there forever. Amazing huh?
"Aerogels are a class of synthetic porous ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component for the gel has been replaced with a gas, without significant collapse of the gel structure.[1] The result is a solid with extremely low density[2] and extremely low thermal conductivity." WIKI
Any science folk here have any experience with this stuff? Like most "new" things, it's not that knew (was first produced in 1931, apparently). They use it on the ISS because it's a great insulator.
My introduction to it was from looking at videos of Vacuum Balloons. Essentially, you get a lightweight material (and Aerogel is one such thing), make a balloon with it (you'll need some kind of framework to give it shape. You then create a vacuum within the balloon. Once done, the object floats, since it's lighter than air.
From what I can make out, they have some surveillance balloons using this type of thing up there right now. Since it floats, it requires no energy to keep itself up. Essentially, bar some catastrophic failure, it'll just float there forever. Amazing huh?
"Aerogels are a class of synthetic porous ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component for the gel has been replaced with a gas, without significant collapse of the gel structure.[1] The result is a solid with extremely low density[2] and extremely low thermal conductivity." WIKI
Any science folk here have any experience with this stuff? Like most "new" things, it's not that knew (was first produced in 1931, apparently). They use it on the ISS because it's a great insulator.
