Unobtainium

[rickshaw]

An article of I believe, intense interest to us Whiffers - from the Big Boys' and Girls' Book of World Knowledge - the history of unobtainium!   

[kerick]

My mind is now full, it can't hold any more information.

[PR19_Kit]

'The concept of unobtainium is often applied flippantly or humorously.'

How dare they! What do they mean 'flippantly'? It's in everyday use here, and anyway there's no mention at all of Spackman Mining and Exploration Inc. concerning our never ending search for the rarest of all Earth metals. 

[jcf]

'The concept of unobtainium is often applied flippantly or humorously.'

How dare they! What do they mean 'flippantly'? It's in everyday use here, and anyway there's no mention at all of Spackman Mining and Exploration Inc. concerning our never ending search for the rarest of all Earth metals. 

I guess you'll just have to edit the page to add the relevant info. 

[PR19_Kit]

'The concept of unobtainium is often applied flippantly or humorously.'

How dare they! What do they mean 'flippantly'? It's in everyday use here, and anyway there's no mention at all of Spackman Mining and Exploration Inc. concerning our never ending search for the rarest of all Earth metals. 

I guess you'll just have to edit the page to add the relevant info. 

Now wouldn't THAT be funny? 

[Howard of Effingham]

'The concept of unobtainium is often applied flippantly or humorously.'

How dare they! What do they mean 'flippantly'? It's in everyday use here, and anyway there's no mention at all of Spackman Mining and Exploration Inc. concerning our never ending search for the rarest of all Earth metals. 

some models just couldn't be made without it!!!!! 

which is why we are ALWAYS on the hunt for some..... 

[albeback]

Wasn't a new source of unobtainium discovered recently? I seem to remember that a nuclear powered, laser equipped drilling machine designed to reach the Earth's core was actually built entirely of unobtainium?

[PR19_Kit]

Wasn't a new source of unobtainium discovered recently? I seem to remember that a nuclear powered, laser equipped drilling machine designed to reach the Earth's core was actually built entirely of unobtainium?

It's true, Spackman Mining and Exploration Inc. built the machine with our last remaining stocks of the metal in order to continue our never ending search for the ore. Our current plan is to mount the machine aboard a large drilling vessel and to drill diagonally underneatht Novya Zemlya where the only known node is currently thought to be located. Fingers corssed.

[martinbayer]

Huh - my understanding was that CERN expected to be able to first produce trace amounts of Unobtanium by impacting target pellets made of a Dysprosium-Technetium-Ytterbium alloy with Higgs bosons travelling at around 0.972 c in the Large Hadron Collider about three years from now, but reading here about the Spackman mining venture for the first time I guess that article in the trade journal Metals and Alloys Digest (MAD) was wrong...

Martin

[Old Wombat]

Huh - my understanding was that CERN expected to be able to first produce trace amounts of Unobtanium by impacting target pellets made of a Dysprosium-Technetium-Ytterbium alloy with Higgs bosons travelling at around 0.972 c in the Large Hadron Collider about three years from now, but reading here about the Spackman mining venture for the first time I guess that article in the trade journal Metals and Alloys Digest (MAD) was wrong...

Martin

Obviously!

Sheesh! You know Kit's only trying to get enough here so he can get to Pandora, which is d@mned-near made of the stuff, don't you?

"Avatar" is, after all, a Spackman Mining and Explortaion Inc. training video!



Guy

[PR19_Kit]

Huh - my understanding was that CERN expected to be able to first produce trace amounts of Unobtanium by impacting target pellets made of a Dysprosium-Technetium-Ytterbium alloy with Higgs bosons travelling at around 0.972 c in the Large Hadron Collider about three years from now, but reading here about the Spackman mining venture for the first time I guess that article in the trade journal Metals and Alloys Digest (MAD) was wrong...

There have been various mentions of this most rare of metals in the Forum, but the prime information about the mining efforts starts here :-

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,35391.msg566781/highlight,unobtanium.html#msg566781

As you can see we're currently in an 'Unobtanium Gap' as Spackman Mining and Exploration Inc. are the only operation that has the technology to not only mine the ore, but also to refine it to produce the base metal and as the only known node of the ore is currently moving toward Novya Zemlya we're having problems with the Russian Government allowing us to continue mining. Perhaps 'metal' is the  wrong word to use when referring to unobtanium as the material exists in metallic, liquid and gaseous forms depending on its phase, but it is mostly commonly used as a metal in the Omega phase, especially in aviation circles of course.

[rickshaw]

Near as I can figure out, the opposite point on the globe from Novya Zemlya is... Heard Island.

Quick!  We own that!  We must gain possession of this value resource!  

[Rheged]

Kit is keeping VERY quiet about the unobtainium recovery programme that  Spackman Enterprises   have been running for many years.  It would be interesting to speculate on how many museum exhibits and gate guardians have had mainspars replaced with alternative materials now that they are no longer required to fly.

[PR19_Kit]

Kit is keeping VERY quiet about the unobtainium recovery programme that  Spackman Enterprises have been running for many years. 

Due to the limitations of the original supply contracts for the material I'm not at liberty to comment on that, but unobtanium is rather like software, the users never really 'own' it, they just hold it temporarily.

As Einstein once said 'Thiz unobtanium iz strange stuff, id iz doddaly impossible do desdroy and can only be re-used.....' 

[rickshaw]

How commendable and environmentally concious that now we even see recycling in the aerospace industry...