Sye Goes Weightless, Almost?

I thought I would tell the story of a not fully completed project dealing with chain mail art in space.

We have worked with NASA or JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) on three occasions.  The first was when NASA contacted us about using chain mail on the tires for an LRV (Lunar Roving Vehicle).  Unfortunately, the tire design did not make it past the prototype stage and a more rigid screen product was used in the final design.

The second time was when we designed a scale and chain mail screen for a seismometer that actually made it to the finished product and is now on the planet Mars.

The grey edge at the bottom is chain mail and the black band above it is scale mail.  

The third was when a design firm working for Nasa reached out to us.  NASA had a problem marketing space.  The old concept of showing weightless water globs and spinning weightless pencils had lost the fresh appeal.  NASA had the idea that they would make a kinetic art piece designed for zero gravity and show it aboard the ISS (International Space Station) to gain new interest in space and the ISS.  The design team already had a pattern in mind that we took it and slightly altered to work with chain mail.  Unfortunately, no pics, but I would describe it as a 3-foot diameter flower with chain mail petals that were presumed to form fluidic wave-like shapes in zero gravity.  In conversations with the small design team, I discovered that everyone at their firm was dreading going on the parabolic flight used to test the chain mail flower in simulated weightlessness as they all experienced motion sickness (the parabolic plane is nicknamed the “Vomit Comet” as a lot of people do not react well to weightlessness).  I asked if I could do it and to my astonishment, they loved the idea as any changes to the design could be better decided by someone who knew chain mail construction.  We made the kinetic sculpture flower, shipped it, and then COVID hit… the momentum was lost, and the gravity of Sye’s dream of being weightless drifted back down to earth.

I hope you enjoyed the Chain Mail Tale and comment below if you would like to hear more.

Sye the Chain Mail Guy