#vectran

[thesteveyates]

The soft option.

At some time soon i will have to replace Inanda’s running and standing rigging, the running rigging is easy and i only have to decide how low-stretch to go.  Some people advocate keeping everything a bit on the low-tec and ‘give-y’ side claiming that old boats shouldn’t be cranked up hard with modern lines.  I don’t believe in that as it’s more likely to be able to keep sails flat with…

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[utaustin]

Women in Aerospace Student Group Partners with NASA on Microgravity Experiment

Working day and night until the moment of takeoff, members of the Cockrell School of Engineering's Women in Aerospace for Leadership and Development (WIALD) student group earned their chance to fly an experiment aboard NASA’s reduced gravity aircraft in early June.

WIALD’s experiment tested the thermal properties of Vectran — a highly heat-resistant filamentous material that is five times stronger than steel — on NASA’s reduced gravity airplane. Future manned spacecraft to Mars will be made out of Vectran, and WIALD’s experiment marked the first time Vectran combustion has been tested in microgravity. Because fire behaves differently in reduced gravity, WIALD’s results will help NASA in its research goal to reduce fire risk on manned missions to Mars. Read more about the trip and experiment. See photos from the NASA trip.