Designing a golden parachute

[Mr Skeptic]

Suppose someone offered you a golden parachute, made of 24 carat gold, under the condition that you jump from a plane with it, would you accept? How big could you make the golden parachute?

[SkepticLance]

Interesting question.

24 carat or 'pure' gold is extremely soft and malleable. Anything like a traditional parachute made from this material would rip and shred, and carry you screaming to your death.

 

I would imagine that extremely careful engineering might allow a parachute 'wing' to be designed, with computer designed cantilevered supports, that might be strong enough. If such was possible, it would be tempting to take up the offer. But you would have to have an awful lot of confidence in the design team!!!!

 

However, the answer to your question is that I would jump from a plane with the golden parachute, if it was folded up and tied to my body, while I carried a proper parachute on my back.

[Mr Skeptic]

Don't go all lawyer on me, SkepticLance Personally, I would jump from a plane that has yet to take off with a gold brick if it were about mincing words.

 

I suppose a gold glider would also be fair game if it would be easier to design.

[big314mp]

The mythbusters lead balloon experiment comes to mind.

 

Could you instead design a gold shock absorber?

[Mr Skeptic]

Hey, if you want to jump from a plane with a shock absorber made of gold (or anything else, for that matter), be my guest. How would you make it so you don't fall faster than a brick though?

[Gilded]

Since gold can be made into a very thin wire with relative ease I wonder if you could use it to weave an extremely fine multilayered net to make it stronger. Speaking of the lead balloon, lead has a density of 11.34g/cm^3 where as gold is significantly denser at 19.3g/cm^3. I'm not convinced even "nanobuilt" gold structures can take the strain a parachute is subjected to without being too heavy for that purpose.

[insane_alien]

i think it would be possible but you'd be looking at a multi-tonne(probably multi-kilotonne) device that will be rigid and far from practical and still very fragile and likely a use-once and then its trashed deal.

 

stick with slapping some gold paint on a traditional parachute. much better.

[big314mp]

i think it would be possible but you'd be looking at a multi-tonne(probably multi-kilotonne) device that will be rigid and far from practical and still very fragile and likely a use-once and then its trashed deal.

 

stick with slapping some gold paint on a traditional parachute. much better.

 

I thought the point of this exercise was to design a one time use device, that is made of gold, that we would jump out of a plane in. And then presumably keep the gold should we land safely .

[ParanoiA]

I think I'd rather just hang around the projected landing spot and take the gold off of your dead body.

[Mr Skeptic]

I thought the point of this exercise was to design a one time use device, that is made of gold, that we would jump out of a plane in. And then presumably keep the gold should we land safely .

 

You got it. It doesn't need to be a one time use device, but it doesn't have to be reusable either. Keep in mind that your shock absorber will increase your terminal velocity instead of decrease it like a parachute, so you'll be going well over 200 mph.

[insane_alien]

how about a massive pair of golden stilts so you can just step out of the plane if we can abandon the parachute idea?

[gcol]

 

Alright, going to show my dumbness here, but gold can be drawn into very fine threads which can be (and have been) made into cloth and rope. Surely it is just a question of how you fold and pack it, and if weight is a problem, just increase its area. So surely it is just a lateral thinking design problem?

[big314mp]

You got it. It doesn't need to be a one time use device, but it doesn't have to be reusable either. Keep in mind that your shock absorber will increase your terminal velocity instead of decrease it like a parachute, so you'll be going well over 200 mph.

 

I'm thinking that since gold is so soft, it will be extremely difficult to design and build a gold parachute. The one thing that stuck in my head is, where and how do you tie yourself to the parachute? It seems that if the parachute is thick enough to support your weight, it is too heavy to help, and vice versa.

 

However, gold is a soft, easily deformed metal. So some sort of system that would absorb the energy by deforming lots of relatively thin gold rods seemed like a better solution. Something like a birds nest.

 

And if designed correctly, the increase in weight could be counteracted by the increase in surface area.

[Sisyphus]

What would increasing the surface area do? It's weight is directly proportional to it's surface area (assuming we're talking about a cloth-like thing), and so is its drag. The only difference is, does it have enough "extra drag" to still fall slowly enough with the weight of a person added to it. But it seems doubtful that you could even get that far. You could make an ultrathin fabric that might drift gently to Earth, but it wouldn't be strong enough to support any payload. It needs to have a minimum tensile strength so as to not be ripped apart by the weight of a person, which means that it has a certain minimum weight per surface area (and hence per drag force), which means that no matter what it's going to have a minimum terminal velocity that's probably too high even before you add the weight of a person. And if that's the case, then it doesn't matter how big you make, it still won't work.

[insane_alien]

not to mention that even if you get a functional one, you still need to be able to get out from under it before it crushes you.

[SkepticLance]

The problem is that gold is so damn weak. You wouldn't like to cheat and let us use 18 carat gold, would you? 24 carat can be beated into fabric as thin as you might ever want it. However, it would be weaker than wet tissue paper.

 

The stilt idea is funny. 24 carat gold stilts about 1000 metres plus in height would bend and twist like pretzels. They would not even support their own weight. Collapse is instant. Mind you, they would be worth mega millions!

 

A giant 24 carat gold sponge might have possibilities, with its cellular structure. Might hold up long enough to let us fall on it and get a soft landing. However, you can have the privilege of trying. I will operate the movie camera and sell the footage. A better and surer way of making money!

[Mr Skeptic]

Alright, going to show my dumbness here, but gold can be drawn into very fine threads which can be (and have been) made into cloth and rope. Surely it is just a question of how you fold and pack it, and if weight is a problem, just increase its area. So surely it is just a lateral thinking design problem?

 

I thought this too, but when I looked up gold cloth it turns out it is made of a silk and gold composite. I guess that the gold would simply be too soft for a safe parachute.

 

I think the winner then would be a giant shock absorber. The weakness of the gold can be overcome by building it as a giant gold pyramid, with a shaft in the middle containing the shock absorber. You might want a shovel so you can dig yourself out. This should work for falling from an arbitrary height; just make a bigger pyramid. I don't think it is a valid solution though, as there wouldn't be an airplane that could lift it, and there might not be enough gold to make the pyramid. You'd get your money's worth though, that's for sure!

[big314mp]

Brilliant plan! Make a device so big the plane can't take off. And then just step out of the plane and claim your gold!