1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Researchers at NASA have a long and significant history of materials technology development. 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:09,000 With an impressive list of new lubricants, lightweight alloys, and composites, 3 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,000 these materials have revolutionized our world. 4 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:17,000 Since the 1960s, the process of creating new materials has rapidly advanced. 5 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:21,000 Today, NASA scientists are continuing to develop new materials 6 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:25,000 that are hundreds of times stronger than steel at a fraction of the weight. 7 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,000 These advanced materials are becoming so strong and lightweight, 8 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:33,000 they can stop bullets and even keep debris from puncturing space vehicles. 9 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:36,000 But how are these materials made and what else can they be used for? 10 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:40,000 Our own Johnny Alonzo finds out how it works. 11 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:48,000 Specialized protective clothing has been around for thousands of years. 12 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:50,000 From ancient warriors to medieval knights, 13 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:54,000 protective garments were worn to help prevent injuries and save lives. 14 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:57,000 The materials that were used to make these types of clothing, like metal and leather, 15 00:00:57,000 --> 00:00:59,000 worked well in those early days. 16 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:01,000 But as weapons became more sophisticated, 17 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:04,000 the usual materials began offering less protection. 18 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:07,000 The types of materials that were used to make protective clothing 19 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:10,000 remained relatively unchanged until about the mid-1960s 20 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,000 when a research scientist named Stephanie Qualic 21 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:15,000 introduced a revolutionary new material called Kevlar. 22 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:17,000 This material was not only lightweight and durable, 23 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:21,000 but was about five times stronger ounce for ounce than steel. 24 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:25,000 With this development, the world of protective materials changed forever. 25 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:29,000 Today, stronger, lighter synthetic structures have opened up new and exciting avenues 26 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:31,000 in the development of protective materials. 27 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:33,000 These materials are being used in everything, 28 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:36,000 from sporting goods to space applications. 29 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:38,000 To help shed some light on how these materials have changed our lives, 30 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,000 I spoke with Dr. Jeffrey Hinckley at NASA Langley Research Center 31 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:44,000 to find out how it works. 32 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:46,000 If you look at the history of materials in humankind, 33 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:49,000 you see the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, 34 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:53,000 and then the Age of Steel, which is sort of the Industrial Revolution. 35 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:55,000 We're in the course of another revolution now, 36 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:58,000 of high-performance materials that combine the strength, 37 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,000 the stiffness of steel with other properties, 38 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:05,000 electrical conductivity, the ability to be formed plastically, 39 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:08,000 and to even stop bullets. 40 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:12,000 Another example is Kevlar, which is used in armor protection for our troops. 41 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:15,000 And, of course, glass fiber is familiar to some people, 42 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:17,000 and glass fiber boats, and so on. 43 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:19,000 So we've talked about Kevlar. 44 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,000 How does a thin material like that stop bullets? 45 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:25,000 You have here the flexibility of a fine fiber, 46 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:27,000 a very tough, resilient material, 47 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:30,000 and twice as strong as steel at a fifth the weight. 48 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:37,000 And Kevlar is also a good material for penetration resistance, cut resistance. 49 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:39,000 Because of the way it's fabricated, actually, 50 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:44,000 the molecules that make up the polymer are stretched and aligned 51 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:46,000 such that in order to break this material, 52 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:48,000 you actually have to break the molecules. 53 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:51,000 To understand how a flexible material like Kevlar can stop bullets, 54 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:53,000 just think of a net on a soccer goal. 55 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:55,000 The net strands are interlaced together, 56 00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:57,000 which are in turn attached to the frame of the goal. 57 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,000 When the ball is kicked into the goal, 58 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,000 each tether extends from one side of the frame to the other, 59 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:05,000 dispersing the energy from the point of impact over a wide area. 60 00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:07,000 This forces the ball to stop. 61 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:10,000 The same basic principle applies to bulletproof vests. 62 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:14,000 The vest is made up of layers of fabric containing incredibly strong fibers. 63 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,000 When a bullet hits this material, the energy is dissipated, 64 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:20,000 forcing it to stop before it can penetrate the vest. 65 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:23,000 Why is NASA interested in using these materials? 66 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,000 Kevlar, as a bulletproof vest material, 67 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:29,000 is essential to protecting the astronauts and the equipment, 68 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:31,000 for example, on the space station. 69 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:34,000 Space is a very hostile environment. 70 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:37,000 Extreme temperatures, radiation, and small meteorites 71 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:39,000 can make working there very dangerous. 72 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:41,000 For example, the International Space Station 73 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,000 is orbiting the Earth at close to 18,000 miles per hour. 74 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:47,000 At these speeds, even a piece of debris the size of a grain of sand 75 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:49,000 can damage the station. 76 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:52,000 To help decrease the chance of an object penetrating the outer skin, 77 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:55,000 the space station wears a type of bulletproof vest. 78 00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:58,000 Layers of aluminum, ceramic fabrics, and Kevlar 79 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:01,000 form a blanket around each module's aluminum shell. 80 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:03,000 If an object strikes the station, 81 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:07,000 this blanket of protective materials helps to dissipate the energy of the object, 82 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:09,000 helping to keep the crew safe inside. 83 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:12,000 I know that composite materials are still relatively new. 84 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:15,000 How do you think they will change in the future? 85 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:19,000 Maybe one of the most exciting examples is carbon nanotubes. 86 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:24,000 These are pure carbon and unbelievably small, 87 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:27,000 but they're in the form of a fiber. 88 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:30,000 This is a material that was discovered in the 1990s 89 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:35,000 and is probably stronger than anything we've known up till now. 90 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:38,000 It's perhaps stronger than diamond. 91 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,000 The trick is to figure out how to make something useful 92 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:43,000 out of these tiny, tiny tubes. 93 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:47,000 This is 10,000 times smaller than the human hair. 94 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:50,000 And so the trick is to use this material, 95 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:54,000 which even under a microscope just looks like soot, 96 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:59,000 into a strong, lightweight composite material. 97 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:02,000 And so our chemists are working on that. 98 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:05,000 An idea that's really on the drawing boards 99 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:07,000 is the idea of a self-healing material. 100 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:10,000 You can imagine a spacecraft that's going to be in orbit for 20 years. 101 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:12,000 It would be nice not to have to service it. 102 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:16,000 So we conceived the idea of a material 103 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:19,000 that would heal itself after it was damaged. 104 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:22,000 And I have an example here. 105 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:25,000 This is sort of a conventional plastic material 106 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:29,000 that was struck by a 9-millimeter bullet. 107 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:32,000 And as you can see, it shattered and left a hole 108 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:36,000 that's just a little over 9 millimeters in diameter. 109 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:39,000 Here's a new material that was invented here at NASA. 110 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:43,000 And this also was struck by a 9-millimeter bullet. 111 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:45,000 The bullet went right through. 112 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:47,000 The bullet was not stopped. 113 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:49,000 But there's no hole. 114 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:51,000 We can imagine that self-healing materials 115 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:53,000 would be useful on aircraft, too. 116 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,000 Right now, when an aircraft is brought in for service, 117 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:58,000 they look all around it for cracks. 118 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:00,000 And they're looking for a critical crack, 119 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:02,000 which on some commercial jets 120 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:04,000 might be as much as 4 inches long. 121 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:07,000 When they get to the critical crack size, they repair it. 122 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:09,000 We can imagine a composite material 123 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:12,000 made with self-healing matrix, self-healing plastic, 124 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:16,000 that could heal itself, and the cracks would never grow. 125 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:18,000 The exciting thing about working for NASA 126 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:20,000 is that it is always something new. 127 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:23,000 And we get to sometimes see the results of our work 128 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:25,000 coming into commercial use. 129 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:27,000 So the next time you hear about somebody 130 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:29,000 getting their life saved by a bulletproof vest, 131 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:31,000 you know how it works. 132 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:33,000 I wonder if these things work well with paintballs.