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NASA Aerogel

Toasty Feet features breakthrough technology developed for NASA. The advanced nonporous material in Toasty Feet has the highest thermal insulation value of any solid material available today, allowing it to block both heat and cold efficiently, while remaining light and thin
Toasty Feet : : from PolarWrap

This stuff can be used for a lot of different things. NASA is using it to collect space dust without breaking the mini asteroids. Obviously this has other fantastic applications. The insulation is most specially interesting as toasty feet suggests here.

New technology could offer a way out. As an example, the December 1997 issue of Today's Homeowner magazine listed NASA aerogel research ("Super Stuff") in its cover story entitled "Best New Products for 1998." The article concludes: "The potential market for a clear aerogel is enormous, considering that window heat loss accounts for up to 30 percent of energy lost from a home. A well-designed aerogel window could lower heating and cooling costs by a comparable figure".
John Glenn will conduct experiments with 'aerogel' on STS-95

Aerogel represents what technology experts consider the best insulation material ever invented. It weighs virtually nothing. It's flexible. It's translucent. And, it can hold up under temperatures of 3,000 Fahrenheit. Aerogels have unsurpassed thermal insulation values, as well as sound and shock absorption characteristics.
Aerogel--From Aerospace to Apparel

I think the most interesting application of insulation is much like that of gammamanager.com Contain the heat from an electric motor until there is enough of it to power a generator. A standard electric motor may be close 100% efficient the heat it generates is free, there isn't any explanation for it in physics, neither are they interested in one.


nasa, heat, energy, spacetravel