How many coins are going to Pluto this week?

A lot of that yellow kapton tape goes into spacecraft. It holds up at temperature extremes and keeps wires from flopping around.

Here on Earth we use it to hold things in place inside vacuum chambers on surfaces that are exposed to plasma discharges, at least for short time periods.

 

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Really? Thats kinda interesting. Just seemed odd something simple like tape is used on such delicate projects i guess.

 

You definitely have to be careful picking what circumstances you choose to use tape to hold things together. But yes, under the right conditions tape can replace other fasteners. If you had to use two screws and a bracket to hold that quarter in place that would have added extra weight. And if you had to use screws and brackets to hold down a lot of different bits (wires, small balancing masses, etc) that can add a lot of extra weight to a spacecraft where every gram matters.

Another "old school" technique that shows up in spacecraft is lacing to hold wires in place. This is a labor intensive process of using waxed thread or string to secure bundles of wires. It was used on Earth years ago when more man hours went into manufacturing things like electrical appliances but you don't see it on mass produced items these days because it is just too labor expensive. Again, the lacing makes for a secure method of holding down cables and weighs less than brackets might.

Looks like the Pluto flyby was a success. That's great news!

 

amazing

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/science/space/nasa-new-horizons-spacecraft-reaches-pluto.html?_r=0

 

Yes, that is really cool.