As a member of the public who thought 1) spacecraft were covered in gold foil and 2) the foil looked "cheaply" made (assuming that was ok for space reasons), this video was even more informative to me than others I've watched. Thanks!
@@pokie6087 It's very possible not to know the backstory to the project you're onboarding. I've seen interactions between hobbyists and professionals where both people learn just as much from each other. Hobbyist has broad knowledge, whereas professional keeps their nose to the grindstone on a particular aspect / narrow scope.
@Scott, I teach a university level spacecraft design course. Every semester I have to explain to my students what MLI is and what it's used for. Your brilliant explanation now relieves me of one lecture and lets me focus on other topics. Thanks for making my ob easier.
doesnt change the fact the apollo missions USED mylar coated with gold ... thats why they had to crinkle them so they showed more depth for the actual depth ...
The effective emissivity scales with 1/(n + 1) for n layers. You don't halve the emission with each extra layer added (which would imply scaling of 1/(2^n).
Hi Phil The ladies in the main hall assembled the thermal blankets using their little Frister Rossman sewing machine, her husband still in the music biz
From what I’ve read, the shock absorbers on the Apollo LM legs were actually an aluminum honeycomb structure that crushed under load, obviously a one time use thing. They were designed to absorb a pretty substantial load from a bad landing, but apparently were never compacted more than a few inches, Apollo 15 being the hardest landing of all the missions.
I am so happy to finally know all the details of this insulation covering. Also those views of the legacy voyager trajectory gravity simulations at 8:43 were amazing! I had never seen those before
@ethreix800 ChatGPT isn't exactly a reliable source of information. It is brilliant in creating new content (code, summaries, stories, ...) but the model is trained to produce the most likely continuation of a text which might actually contain true information but can also just be some convincing made up stuff.
@@SnakebitSTI You may be buying your kapton from an inferior supplier. I’ve had some cheaper Chinese rolls that didn’t stick too good. Also age may be a factor.
I laugh when I see construction photos of probes or satellites where they've hung up a paper sign, for example, "Please don't leave your old food in the employee fridge" with a piece of 40mm kapton tape.
Domestic aluminium foil is actually super clean. We make Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometers. SIMS is a surface analysis technique and we use it as a test target and wrap our clean room sub-assemblies in it.
This makes me so happy. I've been decorating models with kapton tape over aluminum foil for years, simply trying to replicate the look. I started 3d printing over a decade ago with a Solidoodle, and the thing to do back then was use kapton tape on the heated bed. One day I looked at my roll of foil and a light bulb went off, it would look exactly like the real thing! Little did I know it mostly was the real thing. 😂 Thanks Scott!
The same stuff - btw. made by a company called Austrian Aerospace - is also used in MRI and NMR superconducting magnets which require liquid helium at 4.2 Kelvin to be superconducting. Typically the liquid helium dewar is surrounded by a liquid nitrogen dewar (at 77 K) and finally several dozen layers of mylar foil in vacuum around it.
The "Space Blankets" that you can buy at the local sporting goods store is the aluminized mylar that is used for insulating spacecraft, albeit a lower quality than the actual stuff. I've even run into aluminized kapton in an old oven that I was repairing. One of the many benefits that the public has received from the space program that is rarely recognized.
That aluminised fabric is also used to make bags, which hold stuff sensitive to thermal damage, and they work well to keep the contents at a reasonably stable temperature. I use the old bags, which are very big, as camping blankets, as they are easily big enough to cover you, and after 5 minutes you are very warm inside from the reflected body heat. Normally a ground sheet, one on top of that, a blanket or thin foam mattress, then you, a blanket, and another on top is a perfect way to stay warm even on the coldest night. They take up little space when folded up as well.
@@simonm1447 they aren't that effective in air although they are great at reflecting radiation (in this case a person's radiated heat back to the body) they have practically no R value for retaining heat due to convection. A normal blanket would probably still protect them better but they are bulky and difficult to put in an emergency pack.
I wish TH-cam had teaching awards like Teacher of the Month or Teacher of the Year. You explain/teach one of the most difficult subjects to understand and I’m able to always understand it. TEACHER OF THE YEAR!
I built an Airfix LEM (with accompanying ALSEP unit) and spent many hours covering the requisite parts in Quality Street wrappers. I can recall some terrific archive footage of one of the LEMs being tested in low earth orbit showing a detonation (stage separation or something) that shreds the foil spectacularly. The Apollo program, though: it was quite something, wasn't it? Fifty years or so ago and since then there's not been anything quite like it.
Unfortunately some countries like to wage war and that requires the Pentagon to have a $ 900B yearly budget. Imagine what 900 billion could do if NASA does what it does with ~$20B per year.
I just thought wonder how many Quality Street wrappers and the like went into the making of Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds. I haven't made an Airfix style model in a long time.
I wouldn't say that, in many ways modern modular space stations (Mir, ISS, Tiangong) are a lot more impressive from a technical perspective than the Apollo hardware for example.
The last couple of Apollo landings included the rover with a camera that was ultimately used to live broadcast the launch of the ascent stage back into lunar orbit. There was a lot of shredded insulation blasted away as the ascent stage left the descent stage... One of the more amazing sights from the Apollo landings.
Thanks for including the part about the reinforced pressure vessel, because now that part is a good response to those who claim the lander was dressed to frumpy to land on the moon and walk down it's own senior prom ladder, or whatever they're on about.
Kapton tape rocks, I use the stuff in all sorts of electronics projects, including High Voltage applications, it's incredible stuff. Another similar tape I _really_ like is Polyester powdercoat masking tape, it's resistant to HV, High temperature (450°F) and it forms an extremely strong shear bond if it's applied to smooth surfaces, not to mention it's thicker and stronger than Kapton, and it comes in all sorts of widths and thicknesses, from 1/8" wide strips to 6" wide rolls. Little on the spendy side but it's ohh so worth it.
Pioneer 10 and 11 - it warms my heart that you mentioned them! I have for a long time believed, that I was the only one alive still remembering them, now that there is all that talk about the Voyagers and their results!
The oil film on aluminium foil is a residual coating from the rolling process that produces the foil. It is not a coating added to prevent things from sticking to the finished product.
I'm reminded of the emergency blankets I used to see in sporting goods stores. Well, I imagine they are still there, but I haven't been camping in almost 40 years. But these blankets consisted of a thin foil that would fold up to be about the size of a deck of playing cards. As I understood them, they can be so thin because they reflect nearly all the heat that hits the shiny foil back toward your body. I wouldn't think there would be enough room to place a vacuum between different layers, but perhaps there is.
The reflection alone already does a great job. I have been carrying such a blanket with me for over 30 years, wherever I go, and it has been useful twice. I wasn't in any life threatening situation, but it has allowed me to sleep comfortably when I found myself in unforeseen sub-zero temperatures. I did bring other gear, it is certainly not enough by itself, but if things turn out considerably colder than expected, it provides an effective extra layer. They are also useful to shelter against rain and lot of other things.
Having to strip down to expose your akin to the foil isn't always feasible but those survival blankets are very effective at reflecting heat back to your body.
11:12 interesting to see what’s actually under the hood. Never seen that picture before. Awesome. Have always wondered about the bare structure under all the stuff.
I actually _did_ know that it's aluminized mylar covered in a heat-resistant polyimide film, but I am after all a total nerd! 🤓 I have _so much Kapton in my workshop..._ Tape in widths from 6mm to _200mm,_ solid sheets of it, even massive sheets of Dupont Pyralux (Copper-clad Kapton film). It's such a versatile material! 🤩 Fun fact: Kapton tape is the best thing to cover the quartz window on a UV EPROM to prevent accidental erasure. The amber color filters the UV, and Kapton tapes leave like zero residue behind even after decades. 😌 Certainly a damn sight better than self-adhesive paper stickers which decompose after a decade. (except the adhesive which turns into an indestructible fossilized substance.)
@@asicdathens Yep, that's what my 200mm roll was for originally. The trick is you need to build tools to do the job. My solution is ridiculously bodged together, I never got around to designing a 3D printed one before I stopped using Kapton on my printer bed, or I'd share. 🤷♂️
Designed and manufactured MLI's in my past job for large commercial satellites and it's great to see appreciation for what seems like such a mundane system of a spacecraft. While the individual materials of an MLI don't seem extraordinary, the total cost of a fully assembled blanket per square meter was unbelievable and always mind-boggled me.
Kapton tape is amazing stuff! I was first introduced to it because they use it to mask off parts of a PCB board to shield it when it passed through a wave solder. That's right! It survives having molten metal passed over it! :o Of course, wave solder might be a thing of the past since almost everything is surface mount these days.
Nope. Surface mount is still wave soldered. And usually at higher temperatures than the old days, due to the use of silver solder to reduce lead in the environment.
@@jeromethiel4323wave soldering (selective wave more often nowadays) cannot be used for surface mount components. It would simply remove them off the board. For SMT you utilize reflow soldering. You are right about the temperatures though. With lead free soldering the peak temperatures can get up to 280 degrees Celsius in the hottest zones of the reflow ocen.
@@krzysztoflewandowski5066 Odd how i have seen it done in more than one PCB manufacturing plant. Granted the SM components were epoxied to the PCB first, which may explain why it worked. Plus, we may even be talking about the same thing, as the boards i watched being made, the liquid solder never touched the top side of the board, so it may have just been the heat from the bottom, re-flowing the solder on the top. So maybe both?!? I never asked what they called it, i just know what i saw. When i am hand soldering, i do precisely what you are saying.
@@jeromethiel4323 it's used when there is both tht and smt components. Smt are soldered first on what you could call the top side. Then the tht components are placed so the leads stick out on the bottom side. The wave touches the bottom side when soldering. There is also selective wave where the molten solder can be applied in certain spots of the board. Of course you also could be right - there is probably a thousand ways to assemble a board :)
Thank you! That was very educational without a lot of time-wasting filler. Answered some questions I've wondered about for a long time now. Very much appreciated! ☮
Yes I also apreatiate Scott getting into the meat of the material right away without long irritating intros and lead-up material that other youtubers often use. I have see some videos use up nearly half the video before getting into the main topic you actually clicked on the video to see. Of course they get a thumb down.
I used to build GEO sats. These blankets are incredible. We would take home non- flight scraps to use around the house like oven mitts and flexible coolers.
I use Kapton tape for a variety of things in electronics, but it is also low friction and useful in for example my pick and place machine where the component tapes slide over other surfaces, -60 to +260 C. Good stuff
The "shoddy workmanship" look on the Lunar Module also appears that way because changes were being made to it up to right before launch, so the insulation and panels had to be quickly reattached without concern for appearance.
There is another way to manage heat in space that you did not mention: phase changes. The Apollo PLSS (Personal Life Support System) used the evaporation of water when exposed to vacuum to cool both itself and the coolant that was circulated through the astronaut's undergarments. The LRV also used a phase change to cool its batteries, but in this case the phase change was the melting of wax in trays that were attached to the batteries. This was supplemented with two small radiators that could be opened or closed as needed. (If they parked the LRV in the LEM's shadow, for example, it would have got *really* cold.)
I fully agree with everything you say. I worked in materials at BAe during the 80s, and one of my day to day jobs was measuring solar absorbance & thermal emissivity on both materials & space hardware. I handled this stuff, in all its myriad colours & grades daily. Every time I see a video from an idiot, laughing at the supposed inept build, the 'gold foil & sticky tape' & generally calling us stupid for believing that the LEMs ever flew, I try my best to educate them. It often feels like a Sisyphean task, with their boulder of ignorance.
There was also Kapton covering the Apollo Command Module, although you only see it in the photos taken in space because it burns off during reentry. You also don't see it on the launchpad because at that time the entire Command Module is hidden by the Boost Protective Cover, which remains in place until the LES tower is jettisoned a few minutes into the launch. Most people are aware of the ablative honeycomb heat shield on the bottom of the CM, but many probably are not aware that the entire Command Module was coated with the same ablative honeycomb. But you don't see the ablative coating in space because of the Kapton coating, it's only visible when you see a Command Module in a museum. The Command Module Kapton was pressure sensitive tape that was applied to all of the surfaces, that's why it looks so smooth in the photos, not crinkly like the LM's Kapton "foil", giving the false impression that you are looking at a polished aluminum skin. Although if you look at the unflown Skylab rescue capsule at the Kennedy Space Center you can see the waviness of the tape and realize that it is not metal like you would think at first glance. Actually not all of the Kapton burned off during reentry, in fact if you look at photos of the Apollo 11 Command Module in the water and on the U.S.S. Hornet you can see quite a lot of Kapton remaining on the capsule, which has the more distinctive gold look than the space photos do. For some reason the recovery frogmen's supervisor told them to peel off all of the Kapton which they started to do, and apparently the rest of it was removed later, because when you see the Apollo 11 capsule at the Smithsonian all you see is the ablative coating.
Pointing to the insulation has always been the most irritating argument of the Apollo Deniers. Somehow that one always baits me into an argument. From now on I'll just send them here! LOL
Thank you for a very informative episode. Did not know I always wanted to know how the metal foils worked on the JWST and bonus information on the lunar landers. Thanks for sharing.
As a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons, one of the networks ran a short segment called “In The News”. I think it was reporter Scott Glenn who would spend 5 minutes talking about Pioneer 10, or the moon buggy with a solar panel roof, even Skylab with its mesh floors and special shoes.
I think I've got a pretty good handle on spaceflight, but I learn something every time I watch a Scott Manley video. I had no idea the blankets were intentionally crumbled.
same with the apollo CSM, the spacecraft in pictures are that beautiful shining silver in space. they had many layers of aluminized kapton that kept the temperature regulated and were protected by a nosecone on the saturn V but would also burn off once the vehicle reentered the atmosphere
when i was a kid looking a the dictionaries pictures of apollo lem wondering if its a genius spacey vibe design or a kid just crumple paper things now this is why all those years wondering come to past now thanks scotty manley!
Yeah it sure makes a difference when there is no reason to have curved surfaces for aerodynamic reasons. Although as you can see in that photo the "face" of the LM is round, that's because that part was pressurized, it's basically a short cylinder, sort of like a tuna can turned sideways. It's about 7.5 feet (2 meters) diameter and 3.5 feet (1 meter) deep. Behind it is a smaller diameter cylinder that you can't see which is the back part of the crew cabin, the astronauts would step up 18 inches into it and it was 4.5 feet (1.3 meters) deep.
@@StevePemberton2 You can also see the underneath blankets of insulation in post lift-off shots of the Apollo 16 LEM. For some reason, on lifting off from the moon, the back surface of the LEM was blown apart, exposing the thermal insulation underneath.
@@RRaquello That's interesting, I didn't know that insulation got exposed. Some people get alarmed at photos like that as if the astronauts were in danger, but as I mentioned they were inside a cylinder and it was pretty sturdy. It's an urban legend that an astronaut could put a pencil through the hull, or a foot, or as in some versions of the story a screwdriver. Actually there was very little hull exposed as they were surrounded by switches and instrument bays. And even in the few areas where the hull was exposed the aluminum was about 0.3 mm thick which is three times as thick as a modern soda can. Actually it is believed that with some determination an astronaut could have poked a hole with a screwdriver if they made repeated blows with it in the same spot.
@@StevePemberton2 I believe they were all suited up for the lift off from the moon, so if there had been a break in the pressure capsule and the atmosphere was evacuated you wouldn't have ended up with a Soyuz 11 catastrophe. It wouldn't have been ideal, but I don't think it would have been a fatal situation. I remember seeing one particular photograph, I think from Apollo 15, where they didn't land on flat ground, they were kind of on a hill, and in this picture you could really see the angle and the thing was leaning over a bit and I thought, "Man, that looks like a real pile of junk sitting there". The LEM wasn't pretty, but it did the job it was designed for. On Apollo 16 the surface panels on the back of the LEM all came apart and exposed the insulation underneath. It wasn't a structural thing, but more appearances. I've never seen it much commented upon, so I don't know what the cause was or how much it worried NASA. I remember John Young just barely mentioning it like it was no big deal. Nobody would have even known about it at the time because you couldn't see it from inside and the first one to see it would have been Ken Mattingly when they got up tom the CM. And at that point the LEM only had a couple more hours of use left before Young & Duke went back with all the rocks into the CM and left the LEM to crash into the moon.
Kapton is also used extensively at the LHC and I assume any other particle accelerators too. Not always for the temperature stability though, it is also very radiation hard and a good dielectric. It's the tape of choice at our small detector on the LHC for electric insulation (including high voltage) and stuff like fixing thermistors in places even as close as few millimeters from the LHC beam, so a very radiation intensive environment.
My best friends dad was in charge of wiring for the LEM. He would bring home lots of this plastic film from the plant for us to play with. Are you aware they made TWO identical LEMs?? One went to the moon, the other stayed in the plant in Bethpage. After the astronaunts came back safely, the duplicate LEM was pushed out into the parking lot and spray painted with camo green and left out in the weather for a LONG time. I used to see it outside of the hanger every day on my way to school. I also had the super guppy fly over my house when it came to pick up the LEM and deliver it to NASA in Florida One of the scariest things the engineers thoufgt about was the explosive wire guillotine that cut the wires from the ascent module from the decent module. If this failed, the ascent module would just tip over and never left the moons surface
@Scott Manley , one of the most interesting aspects of the Apollo programme, for all it's high technology, is the use of a relatively seemingly low tech NASA issued mechanical chronograph wrist watch. The Omega Speedmaster Professional wristwatch, which ended up playing, at times, a crucial role. Would you consider doing a video on the use of timepieces in spaceflight? I've seen videos talking about this from the horology side of the fence; it would be fascinating to see a perspective from the spaceflight side of things. All the best, Scott. Loving your work.
They had no choice...Quartz electronic wrist-watches were decades away (in the far distant future) back in 1969. It was mechanical wrist-watches or nothing.
@@petergibson2318 Yes. Good point, but it wasn't decades. It was months. The first consumer quartz wristwatch was released in December 1969. This lead to the _quartz crisis_ in the 1970's, in which the existing mechanical wristwatch industry underwent the massive impact of cheap mass manufactured quartz watches flooding the market. Brands went out of business left right and centre. I have no idea when the first quartz wristwatch with a chronograph complication appeared. But none-the-less, NASA continued for quite some years with the handwound _Omega Speedmaster Professional_ being the only wristwatch officially certified for spaceflight.
One genius (and simple) method of passive insulation was used on the Lunar Rover, where the batteries were packed in paraffin. While the rover was being used, the paraffin would melt, absorbing the heat being generated by the batteries, which would then solidify once the rover was parked at the end of the EVA, dissipating the heat that accumulated during use. This was a low weight solution to the more elaborate cooling system which was originally planned for the rover.
What is that really cool 70s-looking computer graphics at 9:00? Did that come from NASA, or some contractor, is it in a documentary somewhere, is it public domain? It reminds me of the early vector scan video arcade games like Asteroids.
Great introduction. One thing I found interesting doing Mars spacecraft and spacesuit/EMU designs in the past is that the thin atmosphere at Mars is enough to ruin the MLI behavior, as the atmosphere brings enough conduction (even at 5-10 perhaps 14 millibars at canyon bottoms) that MLI doesn’t work well. You end up with insulation looking more like earth normal solutions.
I remember one flat earther TH-camr has a shirt with the LEM on it and had a caption saying "Spaceship or Crack shack?" he also likes to go around and start arguments with people. Real nice guy.
As a soon to be engineer working in a company which builds battery systems and uses Kapton for electrical insulation i can tell you, that i might not be gold but it sure is expensive xD
ahhhh back in Scotland once again and my neck of the woods too, last time it was me correcting your pronunciation of Schiehalion. now its a little bit of history regarding James Dewar, in my Home town of Perth, the is the Dewars Centre, formerly Dewers Ice Rink but its been repurposed for small conventions and the likes, it is named after James Dewar, in his honour along with Dewars Court, an assisted Living Facility for the elderly, they still have their independence, can come and go as they please but in case of emergency there is always staff on hand and it never gets broken into because it is very strategically located, right across the road from the Police Station.
Gold is very good at reflecting infrared. The mirrors on the James Webb telescope have a gold plating. The astronauts visors and cabin windows were also gold plated (on a nanometer scale) to reduce heat load. Aluminium is a better reflective surface for visible light.
Neat I did not know anything about Kapton before now other than its use in 3D printing as a surface, Especially before PEI flex sheets became very common.
1kg per centimetre, likely the 1st time I’ve conceptualised pressure measurements. Not sure why I ever looked, but psi has always just been a measurement
As a member of the public who thought 1) spacecraft were covered in gold foil and 2) the foil looked "cheaply" made (assuming that was ok for space reasons), this video was even more informative to me than others I've watched.
Thanks!
Me too!
As someone who actively helps design these MLI blankets for new spacecraft, very cool to have the background of it!
working for nasa or a company?
You didn't have it before this?
@@L_Train lol
@Kyle B
liar
@@pokie6087 It's very possible not to know the backstory to the project you're onboarding. I've seen interactions between hobbyists and professionals where both people learn just as much from each other. Hobbyist has broad knowledge, whereas professional keeps their nose to the grindstone on a particular aspect / narrow scope.
@Scott, I teach a university level spacecraft design course. Every semester I have to explain to my students what MLI is and what it's used for. Your brilliant explanation now relieves me of one lecture and lets me focus on other topics. Thanks for making my ob easier.
Nobody wants a hard ob.
Give all your course notes to Scott, he'll make videos of spacecraft design, and you can take most of the semester off. 🙂
I've got a flown MLI. Would you be interested in one for show-n-tell?
@@johnmanford5736 Thank you for the kind offer. However, I have some too.
As a former spacecraft thermal engineer, I appreciate your explanation. Thanks for educating the public! Every layer halves the emission.
doesnt change the fact the apollo missions USED mylar coated with gold ... thats why they had to crinkle them so they showed more depth for the actual depth ...
So much for my Ferrero Roche conspiracy theory.
The effective emissivity scales with 1/(n + 1) for n layers. You don't halve the emission with each extra layer added (which would imply scaling of 1/(2^n).
I knew someone would come here for this reply…☝🏾🙄
Hi Phil The ladies in the main hall assembled the thermal blankets using their little Frister Rossman sewing machine, her husband still in the music biz
From what I’ve read, the shock absorbers on the Apollo LM legs were actually an aluminum honeycomb structure that crushed under load, obviously a one time use thing. They were designed to absorb a pretty substantial load from a bad landing, but apparently were never compacted more than a few inches, Apollo 15 being the hardest landing of all the missions.
Apparently Falcon 9 landing legs use the same method.
And apollo 11 landed so gently they barely crushed at all. So Neil and Buzz had a big leap down off the ladder!
@@olliea6052 a giant leap for mankind! 😂
Yeah, that was pretty obvious.
@@SonnellF9 legs have built in flex for standard landings. The crush cores on F9 are only used for out of norm landings, to prevent leg damage.
@@nos9784 aaahhhhh!!! A wasted opportunity!! Nice one! 😁👍
I am so happy to finally know all the details of this insulation covering. Also those views of the legacy voyager trajectory gravity simulations at 8:43 were amazing! I had never seen those before
@ethreix800 ChatGPT isn't exactly a reliable source of information. It is brilliant in creating new content (code, summaries, stories, ...) but the model is trained to produce the most likely continuation of a text which might actually contain true information but can also just be some convincing made up stuff.
@ethreix800 ChatGPT is probabilistic word salad. It knows nothing
@Ethreix I know that's you ChatGPT. We're not falling for your fake google account name and we're not replacing Scott with you.
ChatGPT will also make up information sources
It could be used as a starting point, but I'd put it far below wikipedia as far as accuracy goes
The animation looks like from Star Wars :D
Kapton, especially in adhesive tape form, is definitely an S-tier material. I keep a couple rolls of it on-hand and find myself using it all the time.
Any tips on getting it to stick to things? I have trouble getting Kapton tape to hold onto PCBs and components.
@@SnakebitSTI You may be buying your kapton from an inferior supplier. I’ve had some cheaper Chinese rolls that didn’t stick too good. Also age may be a factor.
I laugh when I see construction photos of probes or satellites where they've hung up a paper sign, for example, "Please don't leave your old food in the employee fridge" with a piece of 40mm kapton tape.
And here I am, trying to figure out where to buy this in my country for months 😞
@@w0nd3rlu573r look into suppliers of consumable for PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition): we use it for masking and fixing stuff inside the chambers
Domestic aluminium foil is actually super clean. We make Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometers. SIMS is a surface analysis technique and we use it as a test target and wrap our clean room sub-assemblies in it.
🤔 could be a difference in time? Voyager was almost half a century ago
This makes me so happy. I've been decorating models with kapton tape over aluminum foil for years, simply trying to replicate the look. I started 3d printing over a decade ago with a Solidoodle, and the thing to do back then was use kapton tape on the heated bed. One day I looked at my roll of foil and a light bulb went off, it would look exactly like the real thing! Little did I know it mostly was the real thing. 😂 Thanks Scott!
The same stuff - btw. made by a company called Austrian Aerospace - is also used in MRI and NMR superconducting magnets which require liquid helium at 4.2 Kelvin to be superconducting. Typically the liquid helium dewar is surrounded by a liquid nitrogen dewar (at 77 K) and finally several dozen layers of mylar foil in vacuum around it.
The "Space Blankets" that you can buy at the local sporting goods store is the aluminized mylar that is used for insulating spacecraft, albeit a lower quality than the actual stuff. I've even run into aluminized kapton in an old oven that I was repairing. One of the many benefits that the public has received from the space program that is rarely recognized.
That aluminised fabric is also used to make bags, which hold stuff sensitive to thermal damage, and they work well to keep the contents at a reasonably stable temperature. I use the old bags, which are very big, as camping blankets, as they are easily big enough to cover you, and after 5 minutes you are very warm inside from the reflected body heat. Normally a ground sheet, one on top of that, a blanket or thin foam mattress, then you, a blanket, and another on top is a perfect way to stay warm even on the coldest night. They take up little space when folded up as well.
Are these the same blankets provided as small packs in first aid kits, where the purpose is to cover exposed victims ?
@@johndododoe1411 Yes. They're single layer, but very effective.
You also find them in European first aid kits, as blankets to protect people from hyperthermia until the ambulance picks them up
@@simonm1447 they aren't that effective in air although they are great at reflecting radiation (in this case a person's radiated heat back to the body) they have practically no R value for retaining heat due to convection. A normal blanket would probably still protect them better but they are bulky and difficult to put in an emergency pack.
Anyone that's used old vacuum flasks knows that feeling when you hear that tinkle rattle when you drop you flask.
sad day
Ohh man that's a bad sound...
Fortunately they are now available in steel instead .
Thanks!
Thank you!
I worked at Nitto Denko and we use to make and cut Polyimide Adhesive Tape for Heat-resistant Insulation No.360 Series. This was a Kapton tape.
I wish TH-cam had teaching awards like Teacher of the Month or Teacher of the Year. You explain/teach one of the most difficult subjects to understand and I’m able to always understand it.
TEACHER OF THE YEAR!
I built an Airfix LEM (with accompanying ALSEP unit) and spent many hours covering the requisite parts in Quality Street wrappers. I can recall some terrific archive footage of one of the LEMs being tested in low earth orbit showing a detonation (stage separation or something) that shreds the foil spectacularly. The Apollo program, though: it was quite something, wasn't it? Fifty years or so ago and since then there's not been anything quite like it.
Unfortunately some countries like to wage war and that requires the Pentagon to have a $ 900B yearly budget. Imagine what 900 billion could do if NASA does what it does with ~$20B per year.
I just thought wonder how many Quality Street wrappers and the like went into the making of Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds.
I haven't made an Airfix style model in a long time.
I wouldn't say that, in many ways modern modular space stations (Mir, ISS, Tiangong) are a lot more impressive from a technical perspective than the Apollo hardware for example.
The last couple of Apollo landings included the rover with a camera that was ultimately used to live broadcast the launch of the ascent stage back into lunar orbit. There was a lot of shredded insulation blasted away as the ascent stage left the descent stage... One of the more amazing sights from the Apollo landings.
I use this kind of tape quite often, for taping temperature nodes on PCBs, where a lot of heat is build up. Does the job very well and it's safe.
Thanks for including the part about the reinforced pressure vessel, because now that part is a good response to those who claim the lander was dressed to frumpy to land on the moon and walk down it's own senior prom ladder, or whatever they're on about.
I use kapton adhesive tapes for years. Mostly when fixing precise electronic PCB's. Sometimes for much different purposes.
Kapton tape rocks, I use the stuff in all sorts of electronics projects, including High Voltage applications, it's incredible stuff. Another similar tape I _really_ like is Polyester powdercoat masking tape, it's resistant to HV, High temperature (450°F) and it forms an extremely strong shear bond if it's applied to smooth surfaces, not to mention it's thicker and stronger than Kapton, and it comes in all sorts of widths and thicknesses, from 1/8" wide strips to 6" wide rolls. Little on the spendy side but it's ohh so worth it.
I keep forgetting to order a roll. I want it because it's mighty handy as thermal protector when using the hot air gun.
Thank you Scott, I always enjoy how you explain things so clearly!🙂👍
Pioneer 10 and 11 - it warms my heart that you mentioned them! I have for a long time believed, that I was the only one alive still remembering them, now that there is all that talk about the Voyagers and their results!
The oil film on aluminium foil is a residual coating from the rolling process that produces the foil.
It is not a coating added to prevent things from sticking to the finished product.
Polyamides and aluminized Mylar are also used in solar sail applications like Japan’s Ikaros and the Planetary Society’s Lightsail experiments.
I'm reminded of the emergency blankets I used to see in sporting goods stores. Well, I imagine they are still there, but I haven't been camping in almost 40 years. But these blankets consisted of a thin foil that would fold up to be about the size of a deck of playing cards. As I understood them, they can be so thin because they reflect nearly all the heat that hits the shiny foil back toward your body. I wouldn't think there would be enough room to place a vacuum between different layers, but perhaps there is.
The reflection alone already does a great job.
I have been carrying such a blanket with me for over 30 years, wherever I go, and it has been useful twice. I wasn't in any life threatening situation, but it has allowed me to sleep comfortably when I found myself in unforeseen sub-zero temperatures. I did bring other gear, it is certainly not enough by itself, but if things turn out considerably colder than expected, it provides an effective extra layer.
They are also useful to shelter against rain and lot of other things.
Having to strip down to expose your akin to the foil isn't always feasible but those survival blankets are very effective at reflecting heat back to your body.
I always found the insulation visually and texturally beautiful.
Would you...lick it?
11:12 interesting to see what’s actually under the hood. Never seen that picture before. Awesome. Have always wondered about the bare structure under all the stuff.
I actually _did_ know that it's aluminized mylar covered in a heat-resistant polyimide film, but I am after all a total nerd! 🤓 I have _so much Kapton in my workshop..._ Tape in widths from 6mm to _200mm,_ solid sheets of it, even massive sheets of Dupont Pyralux (Copper-clad Kapton film). It's such a versatile material! 🤩
Fun fact: Kapton tape is the best thing to cover the quartz window on a UV EPROM to prevent accidental erasure. The amber color filters the UV, and Kapton tapes leave like zero residue behind even after decades. 😌 Certainly a damn sight better than self-adhesive paper stickers which decompose after a decade. (except the adhesive which turns into an indestructible fossilized substance.)
I have several rolls of Kapton tape, the widest one is 200 mm width for 3d printing. Very finicky to unroll without being torn apart
@@asicdathens Yep, that's what my 200mm roll was for originally. The trick is you need to build tools to do the job. My solution is ridiculously bodged together, I never got around to designing a 3D printed one before I stopped using Kapton on my printer bed, or I'd share. 🤷♂️
I never knew I never knew the details of this insulation. Thanks for the knowledge
Had been wondering what it was since I was a child. Thanks for clarifying Scott. Amazing video as usual
7:38 Awesome to see that people with diverse skills can participate in the space program.
First time I bought Kapton tape I was like "Wait, is *this* what that gold stuff is on space probes?!"
Designed and manufactured MLI's in my past job for large commercial satellites and it's great to see appreciation for what seems like such a mundane system of a spacecraft. While the individual materials of an MLI don't seem extraordinary, the total cost of a fully assembled blanket per square meter was unbelievable and always mind-boggled me.
Kapton tape is amazing stuff! I was first introduced to it because they use it to mask off parts of a PCB board to shield it when it passed through a wave solder. That's right! It survives having molten metal passed over it! :o Of course, wave solder might be a thing of the past since almost everything is surface mount these days.
Nope. Surface mount is still wave soldered. And usually at higher temperatures than the old days, due to the use of silver solder to reduce lead in the environment.
Was doing that a month or so ago.
@@jeromethiel4323wave soldering (selective wave more often nowadays) cannot be used for surface mount components. It would simply remove them off the board. For SMT you utilize reflow soldering. You are right about the temperatures though. With lead free soldering the peak temperatures can get up to 280 degrees Celsius in the hottest zones of the reflow ocen.
@@krzysztoflewandowski5066 Odd how i have seen it done in more than one PCB manufacturing plant. Granted the SM components were epoxied to the PCB first, which may explain why it worked. Plus, we may even be talking about the same thing, as the boards i watched being made, the liquid solder never touched the top side of the board, so it may have just been the heat from the bottom, re-flowing the solder on the top. So maybe both?!? I never asked what they called it, i just know what i saw.
When i am hand soldering, i do precisely what you are saying.
@@jeromethiel4323 it's used when there is both tht and smt components. Smt are soldered first on what you could call the top side. Then the tht components are placed so the leads stick out on the bottom side. The wave touches the bottom side when soldering. There is also selective wave where the molten solder can be applied in certain spots of the board. Of course you also could be right - there is probably a thousand ways to assemble a board :)
Thank you! That was very educational without a lot of time-wasting filler. Answered some questions I've wondered about for a long time now. Very much appreciated! ☮
Yes I also apreatiate Scott getting into the meat of the material right away without long irritating intros and lead-up material that other youtubers often use. I have see some videos use up nearly half the video before getting into the main topic you actually clicked on the video to see. Of course they get a thumb down.
Always more new (and old) things to learn. TY!
I used to build GEO sats. These blankets are incredible. We would take home non- flight scraps to use around the house like oven mitts and flexible coolers.
Got to love that Doritsos was the first commercial on this vid. It turned up just as you said metalized polymer.
Thank you for yet another very thorough explanation of a subject I misunderstood Scott. 🙂
Thanks a lot for this one, Scott. You have answered a lot of lurking questions very artfully-
I use Kapton tape for a variety of things in electronics, but it is also low friction and useful in for example my pick and place machine where the component tapes slide over other surfaces, -60 to +260 C. Good stuff
260C ???
@@Milkmans_Son yep 533K. Some can go -270 to +400, but the stuff I use is a lot less expensive
The "shoddy workmanship" look on the Lunar Module also appears that way because changes were being made to it up to right before launch, so the insulation and panels had to be quickly reattached without concern for appearance.
I have never seen the pressure vessel of the lunar lander! That was so cool, thanks!
3:01 Euclid mission! If all goes well, it should be lanched on July 1st. I hope you will do a dedicated video, this telescope is marvelous.
Fascinating stuff indeed! Thanks, Scott!!! 😊
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
There is another way to manage heat in space that you did not mention: phase changes.
The Apollo PLSS (Personal Life Support System) used the evaporation of water when exposed to vacuum to cool both itself and the coolant that was circulated through the astronaut's undergarments.
The LRV also used a phase change to cool its batteries, but in this case the phase change was the melting of wax in trays that were attached to the batteries. This was supplemented with two small radiators that could be opened or closed as needed. (If they parked the LRV in the LEM's shadow, for example, it would have got *really* cold.)
Great vid! Loving the giant Speedmaster model behind the LEM!
Thank you, Scott so much for doing these entertaining and very informative videos.
I fully agree with everything you say. I worked in materials at BAe during the 80s, and one of my day to day jobs was measuring solar absorbance & thermal emissivity on both materials & space hardware. I handled this stuff, in all its myriad colours & grades daily.
Every time I see a video from an idiot, laughing at the supposed inept build, the 'gold foil & sticky tape' & generally calling us stupid for believing that the LEMs ever flew, I try my best to educate them. It often feels like a Sisyphean task, with their boulder of ignorance.
There was also Kapton covering the Apollo Command Module, although you only see it in the photos taken in space because it burns off during reentry. You also don't see it on the launchpad because at that time the entire Command Module is hidden by the Boost Protective Cover, which remains in place until the LES tower is jettisoned a few minutes into the launch.
Most people are aware of the ablative honeycomb heat shield on the bottom of the CM, but many probably are not aware that the entire Command Module was coated with the same ablative honeycomb. But you don't see the ablative coating in space because of the Kapton coating, it's only visible when you see a Command Module in a museum. The Command Module Kapton was pressure sensitive tape that was applied to all of the surfaces, that's why it looks so smooth in the photos, not crinkly like the LM's Kapton "foil", giving the false impression that you are looking at a polished aluminum skin. Although if you look at the unflown Skylab rescue capsule at the Kennedy Space Center you can see the waviness of the tape and realize that it is not metal like you would think at first glance.
Actually not all of the Kapton burned off during reentry, in fact if you look at photos of the Apollo 11 Command Module in the water and on the U.S.S. Hornet you can see quite a lot of Kapton remaining on the capsule, which has the more distinctive gold look than the space photos do. For some reason the recovery frogmen's supervisor told them to peel off all of the Kapton which they started to do, and apparently the rest of it was removed later, because when you see the Apollo 11 capsule at the Smithsonian all you see is the ablative coating.
Loved the Death Star graphs, 2 meter exhaust port, line up for your attack runs 💯👍😂😂😂 Great video, Thanks Scott
Pointing to the insulation has always been the most irritating argument of the Apollo Deniers. Somehow that one always baits me into an argument. From now on I'll just send them here! LOL
Thank you for a very informative episode. Did not know I always wanted to know how the metal foils worked on the JWST and bonus information on the lunar landers. Thanks for sharing.
Always interesting and well presented.
Thank you Scott.
I'm so happy that you mentioned the aluminum foil used on Voyager. It's one of the best space cowboy-ish Space Race stories.
Scott's secret sauce... "vacuum between the sheets." Great video - almost XXX!
Thanks for the knowledge Scott!
Seeing that wristwatch for scale made me realize the Apollo lundar lander was a lot smaller than I expected.
It's complex and fascinating - simply insane!
That graphic of Jupiter spinning at 8:50 reminded of the A New Hope Star Wars movie graphic of the death star.
Loved those old school Voyager animations. Ah, memories.
As a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons, one of the networks ran a short segment called “In The News”. I think it was reporter Scott Glenn who would spend 5 minutes talking about Pioneer 10, or the moon buggy with a solar panel roof, even Skylab with its mesh floors and special shoes.
Christopher Glenn, CBS. I remember that also.
I think I've got a pretty good handle on spaceflight, but I learn something every time I watch a Scott Manley video. I had no idea the blankets were intentionally crumbled.
Wow I never would have guessed! Thanks!
Great video Scott. Thank you!
same with the apollo CSM, the spacecraft in pictures are that beautiful shining silver in space. they had many layers of aluminized kapton that kept the temperature regulated and were protected by a nosecone on the saturn V but would also burn off once the vehicle reentered the atmosphere
I use kapton tape pretty often during hot air reflow of circuit board components. Pretty great way to avoid heating delicate parts.
I thought I was the only one who knew that trick!
my whole life I knew it wasn't gold but had no idea what it actually was, thanks for the detailed explination scott
when i was a kid looking a the dictionaries pictures of apollo lem wondering if its a genius spacey vibe design or a kid just crumple paper things now this is why all those years wondering come to past now thanks scotty manley!
Thank. I designed the continuous Kapton polymer filtration system.
The old school vector graphics of the Voyager animations was extremely cool =)
That was awesome. Thanks Scott!
The under-construction image of the LEM really showed that it's the weirdest shaped spacecraft ever!
Yeah it sure makes a difference when there is no reason to have curved surfaces for aerodynamic reasons. Although as you can see in that photo the "face" of the LM is round, that's because that part was pressurized, it's basically a short cylinder, sort of like a tuna can turned sideways. It's about 7.5 feet (2 meters) diameter and 3.5 feet (1 meter) deep. Behind it is a smaller diameter cylinder that you can't see which is the back part of the crew cabin, the astronauts would step up 18 inches into it and it was 4.5 feet (1.3 meters) deep.
@@StevePemberton2 You can also see the underneath blankets of insulation in post lift-off shots of the Apollo 16 LEM. For some reason, on lifting off from the moon, the back surface of the LEM was blown apart, exposing the thermal insulation underneath.
@@RRaquello That's interesting, I didn't know that insulation got exposed. Some people get alarmed at photos like that as if the astronauts were in danger, but as I mentioned they were inside a cylinder and it was pretty sturdy. It's an urban legend that an astronaut could put a pencil through the hull, or a foot, or as in some versions of the story a screwdriver. Actually there was very little hull exposed as they were surrounded by switches and instrument bays. And even in the few areas where the hull was exposed the aluminum was about 0.3 mm thick which is three times as thick as a modern soda can. Actually it is believed that with some determination an astronaut could have poked a hole with a screwdriver if they made repeated blows with it in the same spot.
@@StevePemberton2 I believe they were all suited up for the lift off from the moon, so if there had been a break in the pressure capsule and the atmosphere was evacuated you wouldn't have ended up with a Soyuz 11 catastrophe. It wouldn't have been ideal, but I don't think it would have been a fatal situation. I remember seeing one particular photograph, I think from Apollo 15, where they didn't land on flat ground, they were kind of on a hill, and in this picture you could really see the angle and the thing was leaning over a bit and I thought, "Man, that looks like a real pile of junk sitting there". The LEM wasn't pretty, but it did the job it was designed for.
On Apollo 16 the surface panels on the back of the LEM all came apart and exposed the insulation underneath. It wasn't a structural thing, but more appearances. I've never seen it much commented upon, so I don't know what the cause was or how much it worried NASA. I remember John Young just barely mentioning it like it was no big deal. Nobody would have even known about it at the time because you couldn't see it from inside and the first one to see it would have been Ken Mattingly when they got up tom the CM. And at that point the LEM only had a couple more hours of use left before Young & Duke went back with all the rocks into the CM and left the LEM to crash into the moon.
THIS was again as usual of your Videos SUPERINTERESTING !!!! I knew about multiple layers but never how sophisticated this was !!!!
I also needed this debunking. Thanks, Scott!
Kapton is also used extensively at the LHC and I assume any other particle accelerators too.
Not always for the temperature stability though, it is also very radiation hard and a good dielectric. It's the tape of choice at our small detector on the LHC for electric insulation (including high voltage) and stuff like fixing thermistors in places even as close as few millimeters from the LHC beam, so a very radiation intensive environment.
Thanks Scott!
I use Kapton tape at work (for card chips). Such a cool material!
I don't know how i didn't find this channel earlier, awesome content. 👍
My best friends dad was in charge of wiring for the LEM. He would bring home lots of this plastic film from the plant for us to play with.
Are you aware they made TWO identical LEMs?? One went to the moon, the other stayed in the plant in Bethpage. After the astronaunts came back safely, the duplicate LEM was pushed out into the parking lot and spray painted with camo green and left out in the weather for a LONG time. I used to see it outside of the hanger every day on my way to school.
I also had the super guppy fly over my house when it came to pick up the LEM and deliver it to NASA in Florida
One of the scariest things the engineers thoufgt about was the explosive wire guillotine that cut the wires from the ascent module from the decent module. If this failed, the ascent module would just tip over and never left the moons surface
Great video, Scott.
@Scott Manley , one of the most interesting aspects of the Apollo programme, for all it's high technology, is the use of a relatively seemingly low tech NASA issued mechanical chronograph wrist watch. The Omega Speedmaster Professional wristwatch, which ended up playing, at times, a crucial role. Would you consider doing a video on the use of timepieces in spaceflight? I've seen videos talking about this from the horology side of the fence; it would be fascinating to see a perspective from the spaceflight side of things.
All the best, Scott. Loving your work.
How about we call that movement old tech instead of low tech?
@@Milkmans_Son Quite possibly. Wording that bit was awkward.
They had no choice...Quartz electronic wrist-watches were decades away (in the far distant future) back in 1969.
It was mechanical wrist-watches or nothing.
@@petergibson2318 Yes. Good point, but it wasn't decades. It was months. The first consumer quartz wristwatch was released in December 1969.
This lead to the _quartz crisis_ in the 1970's, in which the existing mechanical wristwatch industry underwent the massive impact of cheap mass manufactured quartz watches flooding the market. Brands went out of business left right and centre.
I have no idea when the first quartz wristwatch with a chronograph complication appeared. But none-the-less, NASA continued for quite some years with the handwound _Omega Speedmaster Professional_ being the only wristwatch officially certified for spaceflight.
One genius (and simple) method of passive insulation was used on the Lunar Rover, where the batteries were packed in paraffin. While the rover was being used, the paraffin would melt, absorbing the heat being generated by the batteries, which would then solidify once the rover was parked at the end of the EVA, dissipating the heat that accumulated during use. This was a low weight solution to the more elaborate cooling system which was originally planned for the rover.
What is that really cool 70s-looking computer graphics at 9:00? Did that come from NASA, or some contractor, is it in a documentary somewhere, is it public domain? It reminds me of the early vector scan video arcade games like Asteroids.
I was wondering the same thing.
It kind of looks like the graphics you see in the cockpit of the Nostromo in Alien during the landing scene.
Great introduction.
One thing I found interesting doing Mars spacecraft and spacesuit/EMU designs in the past is that the thin atmosphere at Mars is enough to ruin the MLI behavior, as the atmosphere brings enough conduction (even at 5-10 perhaps 14 millibars at canyon bottoms) that MLI doesn’t work well. You end up with insulation looking more like earth normal solutions.
Thanks Scott, excellent content as always.
Great vid! Something I never realized seeing it.
Thank You, for your explanations... Very interesting.
I remember one flat earther TH-camr has a shirt with the LEM on it and had a caption saying "Spaceship or Crack shack?" he also likes to go around and start arguments with people. Real nice guy.
As a soon to be engineer working in a company which builds battery systems and uses Kapton for electrical insulation i can tell you, that i might not be gold but it sure is expensive xD
Scott! What are those cool retro animations you show at 8:44? Are those from the days of analog computer graphics?
Thanks Scott
Really interesting topic. Thanks so much for explaining this!
ahhhh back in Scotland once again and my neck of the woods too, last time it was me correcting your pronunciation of Schiehalion. now its a little bit of history regarding James Dewar, in my Home town of Perth, the is the Dewars Centre, formerly Dewers Ice Rink but its been repurposed for small conventions and the likes, it is named after James Dewar, in his honour along with Dewars Court, an assisted Living Facility for the elderly, they still have their independence, can come and go as they please but in case of emergency there is always staff on hand and it never gets broken into because it is very strategically located, right across the road from the Police Station.
Gold is very good at reflecting infrared. The mirrors on the James Webb telescope have a gold plating. The astronauts visors and cabin windows were also gold plated (on a nanometer scale) to reduce heat load.
Aluminium is a better reflective surface for visible light.
I want to add an extra thumbs up! Your videoes just contains so much great stuff!
Neat I did not know anything about Kapton before now other than its use in 3D printing as a surface, Especially before PEI flex sheets became very common.
Many internal satellite structures are vapor deposition of gold on a thin layer of Kevlar. It’s not for thermal insulation but for preventing EMI.
Is that woven Kevlar or some other form?
@@johndododoe1411 All the ones I have seen are woven Kevlar 120. They are not epoxy prepreg due to outgassing, usually cyanate ester resin.
1kg per centimetre, likely the 1st time I’ve conceptualised pressure measurements. Not sure why I ever looked, but psi has always just been a measurement
Hi Scott!
I love these educational videos!
8:44 Would love to know where that early CG Voyager animation came from. I've not seen that one before.