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If the benefit of manufacturing optical fibre cables in a low gravity environment was so great, would it be more economically viable to build a 'low gravity' fa
by phillc73 9y ago
If the benefit of manufacturing optical fibre cables in a low gravity environment was so great, would it be more economically viable to build a 'low gravity' factory on earth?
- RikNieu 9y agoHow would one produce low gravity on earth?
- smoll 9y agoGo to its center?
- lmm 9y agoMuch, much harder than going to the moon.
- perilunar 9y agoTwo methods: the vomit comet [1], and shot towers [2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced-gravity_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced-gravity_aircraft 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_tower
- bonesss 9y agoYou want to put a delicate-cable factory on an airplane and figure out how to shape all materials from start to finish in 30-second bursts while also compensating for turbulence, additional Gs on ascend, flight adjustments, and proper stowing for takeoff and landing? ... Oddly, that's the more practical of those suggestions, because forming a few kilometers of perfect glass by letting it cool while dropping would seem to require a tower impressive in its own right... More relevant, there are QA demands with fiber-optics that don't seem to jive with a "let it hit the ground and throw out the lumpy ones" approach, much less the handling while in full gravity (which is where the issues are).