On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 05:12:53 +0000, Jorge R. Frank wrote:

"Chuck Stewart" wrote:

Doug Ellison wrote:

Foam that has zero mass, enormous heat resistance, is flight
qualified, will not outgas on orbit, and will make you coffee in the
morning

Aerogel!

Problem solved...

How do you get behind the panels for inspection and servicing,
then...? :-)

Er... send in the Rover after it's made the coffee?

If this was to be seriously done then the aerogel would be in
pieces that would be lifted out chunk by chunk... each chunk
individually cut to a precise specification different from every
other chunk, and requiring serious overhead in record-keeping,
handling and storage while maintanence was underway.

Not that I'd make fun of a cetain design philosophy, you
understand...

--
Chuck Stewart
"Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?"