The Canadarm: An Analysis Of The Canadarm

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Engineers made the Canadarm suitable so that it would be able to withstand the intensities of space. They used materials such as titanium, stainless steel and graphite epoxy. These materials allowed the shuttle to be durable and strong. Titanium in particular has a high strength to weight ratio [10]. This means that it is a light metal but yet very strong. Therefore, since the Canadarm was made of titanium, it allowed the export of this shuttle to space at a lower cost compared to if the shuttle was made of a heavier metal. Shipping items to space costs about $22,000 for a kilogram of material to reach the earth’s orbit [9]. Since the Canadarm weighed about 410 kilograms [3], the exporting of this shuttle would cost about $9,020,000 just for taking the shuttle to the earth’s orbit, without factoring in the cost of the material and the cost of the labour. This price is fairly low since the materials making up the Canadarm are light. The atomic mass of titanium is about 47.87 [3]. This explains why it’s fairly cheap to export a material of this element.
Other materials used for the Canadarm are aramid fibers [1] such as Kevlar [7]. This aerospace material is also used in bulletproof vests [12]. These aramid fibers are fibers in which the chain molecules are highly oriented along the fiber axis, so the strength of the chemical bond can be exploited [1]. Kevlar is also flame resistant [12] which bolds well in space due to the extreme heat from the solar winds. Kapton is another one of the materials used by spacecrafts. This material has the ability to sustain itself and be stable in many different temperatures such as -269 to 400 °C. Since Space is a vacuum the temperature is intense, therefore this material is well suited for counter...

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...groups. Zirconium is also a is a refractory metal [8], allowing protection from solar wind. This element is inexpensive compared to titanium. This factor makes up for the money that it would take to send a Canadarm made of zirconium to space. Since the atomic mass of zirconium is about 91.22 [13], it is about 1.91 times the atomic mass of titanium. This means that the zirconium made Canadarm would be about 1.91 times greater than the titanium made Canadarm, resulting in a total weight of about 783.1 kg. Since the shipping cost to space is about $22,000 per kg [9], the zirconium Canadarm will cost $17,228,200. This seems almost double the price but actually zirconium ends up cheaper than the titanium made Canadarm. This is mainly because purchasing titanium is about five times the cost of zirconium, so with a zirconium made Canadarm, the savings end up greater than

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