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."

*Crash!*

[Reaperducer]

And best of all... In space, no one can hear you break the glass.

Why this matters

[FunWithHeadlines]

No, it's not to make purer martini glasses for snobs who demand only the very best. From the article:

"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!

Re:purity

[Anonymous Coward]

Not using this technique. TFA says the reason glass is so much more pure in microgravity is because it is RESISTANT to crystallization under such conditions.

Up-to-date

[Anonymous Coward]

April 14, 2003... Slashdot is really a frontrunner. Next they'll report that Bush won a second term in office...

Re:Purer carbon nanotubes too?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Is it easier to purify carbon nanotubes in microgravity too?

Short answer: yes.

Re:Take THAT, space science nay-sayers!

[TheKidWho]

You know though, this could be used to create finer lenses for lithography back on earth.

Long answer:

[AtillaTheKilla]

http://data.engin.umich.edu/umseds/kc135/nanotubes /Y2K/proposal/proposal.htm [umich.edu]

Re:purity

[Rei]

That would be a dream - under 1900$/kg? The shuttle cost estimates vary, but are usually over 15,000$/kg. ESA bulk launches are 10,000$/kg. Bulk Russian and Chinese rocket launches are around 7,000$/kg. SpaceX thinks that by the time they get to their Falcon V, they'll be down to almost 2500$/kg (which would be truly incredible - time will tell if they can pull it off).

Re:purity

[Rei]

If you can kick hard enouh to add 7,800m/s velocity (its orbital velocity), I'll be darn impressed ;) Even if you can kick hard enough to get enough atmospheric drag to take care of the rest of the energy (say, 1,000 m/s), I'll still be darn impressed.

Why do so many people have this mistaken idea that you can just jump out of orbit?

Rubbish

[tezbobobo]

Sorry to burst your bubble but in 2003 some Russian astronaut or another was asked about this urban legend.

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.

Info Here [snopes.com]

Re:More geeks should learn about glass blowery.

[spun]

Ahhh, have you ever blown glass? I have, in college, and here's the thing: you need to keep putting the piece back in to the furnace because the glass cools down. Glass is droopy, and you need to keep spinning it to keep the piece from falling over. Shaping the stuff isn't a science, it's an art. When you get a blob on the end of your blow tube, you blow a little, then go scoop up some more, blow a little, round and cool it with a wet wooden block, scoop some more, and so on. Then there is the blowing process and the swinging process, and putting it back into the furnace many times in between. Then pinching and shaping with metal tools, attachement to the punty stick, breaking off from the blow pipe, more shaping with metal tools, potentially more spinning and twirling, then breaking off from the punty stick and placement in the annealing oven.

Trust me, you can't just calculate some odd shape, blow and turn and have that shape come out. Getting anything more than a lumpy cylinder out of the process requires months of practice. Just knowing some mathematical formula will not yield a series of steps that will let you make it by blowing glass.