Disagree crash. The same bonding technology used on the space station or the shuttle is what they need to investigate. One of the issues of the "environment" is increasing cosmic radiation as you go higher in altitude. This radiation causes fretting wear of most metals. (One reason why the aluminum frame of Sans 1 was not the best choice). Nickle, and some precious metals are fairly resistant to fretting wear, but they are very heavy. Nickle is used to plate the titanium components of the space station. Epoxy-Bonding is problematic in space because of the evaporation rate of the polymers in near vacuum. The combination of vacuum and radiation cause crytalization of the epoxy. One reason they replace and test the heat tiles on the shuttle is because of this crystalization. That will be much less of an issue at 70k ft, but it will still shorten the service life of whichever bonding agent they choose. They would like to use a non-metallic bonding solution for many reasons, weight, cost, simplicity, and flexibility are some. My whole point of the discussion, without getting too technical, was that I don't believe this is the biggest obstacle to the airborne antenna. There are more significant technology barriers to overcome. The bonding technology exists, they just need to pick the best one and test it.
AI
