Astronauts attached hundreds of material samples to the outside of the International Space Station and left them exposed to space for years
This image is from Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) 2, part of STS-105 mission in 2001. Full report is at https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20070002707/downloads/20070002707.pdf
45 replies
Just wanted to know what each of these samples were made of
TLDR mostly different types of plastic
That's what the name of the study "Polymer Erosion And Contamination Experiment" implies.
Kevlar is my favorite
Kevlar is a brand name, aramid fiber is the material. And Kleenexs are paper tissue.
Right but if I said aramid nobody would know what that is and if I say kevlar everyone knows. That's why I said it instead of the scientific name that nobody colloquially knows
In addition, aramide fibers aren't generally Kevlar. Thus, calling them by the brand name Kevlar (p-aramide fiber or the exact chemical name as given in the table) is actually more precise.
I once saw a Velcro demonstration at Epcot, and it was clear that they were paying Disney a fortune so they could make the legal claim that they were vigorously defending their Velcro trademark by trying to convince consumers that they should use the phrase "hook & loop fastening system" instead of saying Velcro. Sure we will, it rolls right off the tongue.
Lol I like how 3d printing has me familiar with a number of these plastics
Interesting! Most interesting ones I saw at a glance:
I could have told you that on earth.
Did your source have anything at all about the first 5 ones? Those 4 with the metal frame looking things intruiged me the most.
Specimen #1 to #5 are silicone O-rings, #6 is an
acousto-opticAtomic Oxygen scattering chamber (for measuring the radiation?).It's just pulled from OPs link, didn't go through the whole report sorry.
Held up better than whatever the screws were made out of...
/s
HA!
Where can I buy this eyeshadow pallette?
Sara Huckabee?
The paper says 41 samples, not "hundreds".
0,41 hundred
41 is the number of polymers tested in the PEACE, the whole MISSE program involves several material classes with more than 1000 samples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materials_International_Space_Station_Experiment
That's 10 more than Baskin Robbins.
So, take that big ice cream!
🤣
Very cool experiment. I love the idea of cosmic erosion. Space is truly a hostile environment in every aspect.
So what are the loss paths here?
Sublimation?
Cosmic ray ionization?
Particles escaping the atmosphere reacting chemically?
Astronauts developed a habit of rubbing one sample during each spacewalk for luck?
Main ones are UV and atomic oxygen. There's not a lot of atmosphere at the ISS altitude, but it's still there and you're flying past it at ~18000 mph, so it comes in hot.
Reactive oxygen, UV and ozone.
your girlfriend's makeup case
I would love this even more if that picture was labelled. Still neat tho.
Labels vaporised before the picture was taken
Most materials just left out in the sun in my backyard break down like this. I can only imagine the cold of space coupled with the full blast of the suns radiation.
Deep space is cold. The ionosphere where the ISS is doesn’t really get below 800 k. Plus anything exposed to the sun gets very hot. Cooling the ISS is the primary thermal activity, not heating.
Space is not cold.
I mean yeah the concept of temperature doesn't really make sense when talking about empty space. That said irl space is anything but empty. There's at least a perpetual quantum fizz of virtual particles popping in and out of existence. The average temperature of stuff in space is about 2.7K which is really freaking cold.
Space is not anything but empty, its not totally empty.
So the "stuff" might be at 2.7K but it won't be able to absorb much energy from a hot object. Which is why cooling is an issue in space and not freezing.
Space itself is cold, but any surface subjected to radiation, e.g. sunlight, becomes hot.
Nah, space is cold, but it is also a extremely good insulator.
Because you'd need molecules to bounce off of things in order to transfer energy. No molecules means no heat transfer.
So a hot pan in space could stay hot for months.
i got my ex a pallet like this for her bday
So is Crystalline Polyvinyl fluoride with white pigment what starships should be coated in?
It would’ve been great if metallic samples were included. It is common to coat with gold but gold gets very hot. I pushed for some time with my local engineers to use aluminum instead for space hardware but there isn’t much specific data on aluminum exposure in space.
This feels like an unnecessarily rude comment for something minor. Just point out the issue and ask them to fix it. For example:
@[email protected], the report says that there were 41 samples and not hundreds. Please fix the title in your post to keep it accurate.Turns out the title might not even be wrong, sorry for bothering you Alteon
No worries boss. :)
The 42nd sample would be one of the ones on this tray, considering this tray alone held 46 samples 41 of which were related to this experiment. Are you sure you can count and read? The abstract linked also quite clearly states that MISSE PEACE (ie the polymer one you see in the image) was part of a broader MISSE 2 experiment. If you bothered to read the paper you'd even have seen an image of it in context with other materials.
MISSE 2 alone had 456 samples, if you count other MISSE experiments you hit thousands.
Bad day?