View Full Version : What happened to 'starlite' paint' miracle insulator?


Kaiduorkhon
08-09-06, 05:55 PM
About ten years ago a paint with unprecedented qualities of insulation was widely spoken of and demonstrated within the mass media of the United States. The entire nation was educated to the existence and qualitites of an insular paint like material, one coat of which insulated an egg from a blowtorch, preventing the egg from being cooked or otherwise effected by the intense heat. Similar demonstrations were widely publicized. It was about a substance called 'Starlight paint' - having unprecedented insular qualities. A pine board became impermeable to sustained intense heat, etceteras...

This public information was wide open for about a year, maybe two, about ten years ago. This record says with confidence that tens of millions of newspaper readers and TV watchers know the above paragraph to be true.

QUESTION: What happend to the formerly wide open media informing the public of 'starlite' paint? The formerly hot topic fell off the pages and out of the tubes of every newspaper, magazine and TV set known to this record. Suddenly it's a 'non-issue'. (Way too suddenly?) W'out explanation.

As a physics buff, it immediately occurred to me that starlite paint - thick walls of it - might well be the answer to the containment problem relative to the high temperatures involved in the fusion process.

It also occurred to this record that the fissile nuclear power and petroleum energy people may have snuffed the story out of circulation, along with the substance at issue. Right away we're forsaking generally inflammable housing and construction materials. Pyromanaics and insurance companies would lose a lot of business, for example.

Request more information on this dilemma apparent. It looked to me like the silver bullet the fusion people are in search of, though I did not hear anyone suggest it as a potential answer to the containment problem in fusion? Why is that? What happened to Starlite Paint? I have not seen or heard of it since about ten years ago, when it was suddenly the rage. It disappeared just as abruptly.

Didn't hear any suggestions or talk about its value as a potential solution to the main obstacle in fusion, but I certainly did think of it as soon as I learned of starlite paint and I expected a flood of controversy that never occurred.

The entire issue mistappeared. Might someone tell me where I've gone wrong here, or is it a bigger issue than anyone cares to address (anymore). Like, maybe it's dangerous to talk about. Perhaps starlite paint was found to be unstable under public controversy, especially in the proximity of the fusion confusion. (Just asking?)
RSVP
Thank you for reading this missive.
Sincerely
- That Rascal Poof

spidergoat
08-09-06, 06:25 PM
Maybe physicists don't get their materials from late-night infomercials.

leopold99
08-09-06, 07:16 PM
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=52170&highlight=fire+paste

DJ Erock
08-10-06, 12:39 PM
I think you may be thinking of a type of intumecent sealer. The idea behind which is not so much insulation, as it is fire protection. When fire is applied, it bubbles up and protects whatever is underneath it, then you can scrape the bubbled part (the intumecent) off, and your original surface is there, perfectly untouched. So I'm not sure if this would still work for the applications you're thinking of, but I just wanted to explain the mechanics of it.