Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

[DimesForShares]

Stopping a 747 is easier than a rifle round...

It is a mistake to think that DS would be effective at stopping rifle rounds. 747's cruise at around 570 mph. Handgun bullets start around 500 mph, but many are supersonic (741 mph). Rifles really rip. You can easily get a round that travels at 2,500 mph. They also have a small tip, which concentrates the shock into a tiny region. 747's have a big blunt nose.

To pass a ballistic test in the US, the armor must stop the bullet in 44 mm or 1.73 inches. 2,500 mph covers 44,000 inches per second (if my math is correct). The armor has to take a bullet from 44,000 inches per second to 0 inches per second over the span of 1.73 inches.

DS may be able to stop a rifle bullet, but a normal shoot pack fabricated from DS won't do the job in 1.73 inches.

Randy Lewis has remarked that a spider silk vest would stop a bullet on the wrong side of a soldier's chest. It's a very real problem.

We can all speculate about the possibilities of blends and combinations. One has to understand the speed of sound in a material in order to make sensible guesses about such blends, and we have no information about that.

I want KBLB to succeed as much as the next guy (well, perhaps not Bananarama, but we are close!) Let's see how well we do with handgun bullets. There are plenty of applications for that level of technology that will make us all rich.