many of the latest instruments used by
doctors the vehicles in which we travel
even the appliances in our homes use
magnets they supply us with all sorts of
power but NASA engineers say magnets
manufactured on the earth just aren't as
powerful as lightweight as long lasting
as they could be the next flight of the
space shuttle and this device will take
us a step closer to making better
magnets this is called the automated
directional solidification furnace
simply put it melts and cool samples of
a magnetic compound much the same way
that a manufacturer does when the same
process is performed on earth however
gravity weakens the magnet that problem
is significantly reduced in space the
previous flight of the space furnace on
this 1985 shuttle mission proved that
now project manager Fred Reeves with the
Marshall Space Flight Center says this
basic research will likely lead to
applications on earth despite its
gravity will take advantage of all of
the features that are being derived by
processing these materials in reduced
gravity and make an attempt into to
bring that knowledge and understanding
back into the to the production
environment here on earth Reeve says
that we may see some of those
applications come to light in as little
as five years time meanwhile the space
furnace is designed to take up as little
of the astronauts time as possible a few
seconds to flip these two switches and
the machine takes over from there and
completes the 10-hour experiment
so we feel like that there will be
benefits derived by what we learn up
there and in making that application of
that knowledge applicable to what we do
you own earth