Now Live: The November Issue Of Popular Science Magazine
The Deep-Space Suit Nick KaloterakisEditor-in-chief Jacob Ward introduces the latest issue, which features cutting-edge materials science, a beginner's guide to space mining and more. In this job, I'm continually promising that this or that field will change your life. And so if you're dubious when I say it again here, I understand. But really, I mean it: Materials science will change your life. In truth, it already has. I'm an avid and very mediocre surfer at the breaks near my home in the San Francisco Bay Area. In January and February, when the waves are biggest, the water is so cold that a wipeout means surfacing with an ice cream headache. And yet I can stay out there for hours, thanks entirely to the material known as neoprene. It's a synthetic polymer, and the gas bubbles inside make it an excellent thermal insulator. Before neoprene, surfers wore wool sweaters into...