Elon Musk's New Hologram Project Invites 'Iron Man' Comparisons 135
Nerval's Lobster writes "In the 'Iron Man' trilogy, billionaire inventor Tony Stark uses a gesture-controlled hologram to draft new designs of the titular armor, sending virtual parts flying around his lab with the flick of a wrist. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—who is often compared to Stark by the tech press—is apparently creating the real-life equivalent of that fictional hologram system. 'We figured out how to design rocket parts just w hand movements through the air (seriously),' he Tweeted August 23. 'Now need a high frame rate holograph generator.' In a follow-up Tweet, he added: 'Will post video next week of designing a rocket part with hand gestures & then immediately printing it in titanium.' But Musk has no plans to actually make an Iron Man-inspired suit of armor. 'I am not going to make an IM suit,' he wrote on Twitter, 'however design by hand-manipulated hologram is actually useful.'"
So, is he creating it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or positing it? After the vacuum tube BS stories, I refuse to read another Elon Musk-slobbering fest article.
Re:Those who do not study the past (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand why "gorilla arm" has become such an issue with touchscreens when teachers have been using chalkboards/markerboards for decades.
Moreover, I can see exactly where Mr. Musk is coming from. The new generation of 3d drafting programs is moving away from the monotonous "line, define length + angle, new line, define length + angle ad nauseam" into a more dynamic "stretch + mold"-type UI. The one that I've worked with is called SpaceClaim. The most common comment I've heard is "it's like shaping play-doh on a computer screen." The second-most common comment I've heard is "it would work so much better if I could just grab it instead of using annoying, ambiguous mouse clicks."
The Stark-style hologram thing really is the intuitive answer to people's issues with the new drafting paradigm. With Mr. Musk being at the forefront of modern engineering, I'm sure he's seen those issues, and I applaud him for taking the steps to solve them. If "gorilla arm" happens as a result, then maybe we as engineers should stop being pussies and get some stronger arms.
Re:Expansion Joints (Score:4, Interesting)
> "How, I wondered, is Musk going to solve the thermal expansion problem?
I used to walk under a solution every day going to work, where work was the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. They needed a way to test the optics of the Chandra X-Ray Telescope on the ground, so they built a 1000 foot (300 meter) vacuum pipe that connected an X-Ray source at one end to a vacuum chamber with the optics at the other. The reason for the long distance was to have the source at "infinity" optically, and it needed to be vacuum so air would not absorb or scatter the X-Rays.
This pipe ran outdoors, because it was longer than the building, and they wanted the X-Ray source away from other people working there. Naturally it had to deal with expansion due to heat and cold. It was handled with a metal bellows expansion joint (http://www.wahlcometroflex.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/metalrolledopt.jpg) between pipe sections, and the pipes themselves were on sliding support brackets on the concrete columns that held them up. So they can expand and contract as needed, and the bellows takes up the motion.
For the Hyperloop application, you would use finger expansion joints (http://www.ilwontec.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/contents/big_finger_expansion_joint.gif) inside the bellows. These are used on bridges for the same thermal expansion reason between the piers and suspended part of the roadway. Instead of being flat like in the picture, they would be circular, following the shape of the main pipe.