(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) I’ve got a good story for the knuckleheads who run around claiming “gold is useless.” Yes, people really do say that.
So, you’ve heard of people looking at the world through rose colored glasses?
Well, when astronauts finally walk on the moon again, they’ll be looking through gold-colored visors.
Growing up in the 1970s, I wanted to be an astronaut. In fact, I think most kids in my generation had that dream at some point in their childhood. It was the era of the Apollo missions, and news about space travel and moon trips was ubiquitous. Heck, I drank Tang because that’s what astronauts drank.
I even got to see the last Apollo rocket launch with my own eyes. We lived in Ormond Beach, Florida, at the time. I was only 5, but I still vividly remember how the sky lit up as bright as day when Apollo 17 fired its rocket.
All that to say that the Artemis II mission and all the amazing images beamed back from the moon by the crew have reawakened my childhood fascination with space travel.
Well, the other day, I ran across an article about the spacesuits astronauts will wear when they walk on the moon during the Artemis III mission. As I looked at the photos, it struck me that the gold visors on the helmets look pretty rad. (My daughter would probably say the helmets “slay.”)
Well, that gold coloring isn’t just a cool look. It has a very important function.
The face shields on the spacesuit helmets look gold because the metal is incorporated into their design.
Oakley developed the visor. Yup – the sunglasses company. And when you think about it, it makes sense. If you think the sun is intense here on Earth on a Florida summer day, it’s got nothing on the harshness of the sun in space.
Axiom Space designed the space suits and subcontracted the visor design to Oakley. The company’s chief technology officer, Koichi Wakata, was an astronaut himself. He flew five missions – three aboard the Space Shuttle, one on the Soyuz, and one on the Crew Dragon. He logged over 500 days in space, so he knows what it’s like.
“In space, the sun is really harsh; it feels as if it’s piercing through your eyes. We need an exceptional visor system to protect eyes and [offer] maximum visibility to enable [astronauts] to work in the challenging lunar environment.”
The Oakley website explained it this way:
“In the extreme environment of space, clarity and protection are paramount. Now, we’re bringing decades of innovation in optics, honed in the world’s most demanding sports and adventure settings, to a new arena: the vacuum of space.”
But why gold (besides that it looks super cool)?
Gold filters out infrared and ultraviolet light. As NASA explained it, “The movable sun visor and sun shades protect the astronaut from the sun’s strong rays, while still allowing a clear visual field.”
I’m not a science guy, so ChatGPT helped me with a little research. I learned that gold’s electron structure interacts with UV and IR photons in a way that prevents them from passing through.
In simple terms, gold has a lot of free and loosely bound electrons. When IR light hits the metal, those electrons absorb the energy and begin oscillating. Instead of letting the light pass through, the metal reflects it.
Gold blocks UV light with a similar process. However, because UV light produces higher levels of energy, it causes more intense electron oscillation. Some UV light is reflected, and some is absorbed. However, little gets through to the astronauts’ eyes.
To take advantage of these physical properties, the astronaut visors include a coating of 24-karat gold.
The visor also features a scratch-resistant outer coating that can withstand lunar dust. There’s also a flip-down visor that completely blocks light from the upper portion of the visor during super-harsh conditions. The helmet even has a small foam block inside that astronauts can use to scratch their nose (and close their nasal passages to aid with pressure equalization in the ears).
Oakley’s head of R&D, Vincenzo Spremulli, said they were looking for something specifically oriented for the reflection of infrared light.
“This is what gold is. Gold is a known material. It’s a precious metal, so it doesn’t undergo any transformation. It can reflect IR radiation away from itself. It doesn’t absorb it. It just reflects it away.”
So, how do they get the gold layer thick enough to stop UV and IR light, but thin enough for the astronauts to see through?
They shoot a beam of electrons at the gold, powerful enough to evaporate the metal. It is then sprayed onto the lens, creating the perfect coating for the job.
And did I mention it looks super cool?
Warren Buffett once said, “Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again, and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”
I even once heard a commentator on a major financial network claim gold is a “useless rock.”
This is obviously a ridiculous take, as we’ve just seen.
In fact, gold is one of the most useful metals in the world. Due to its utility, coupled with its scarcity, gold is also one of the most valuable metals in the world.
In the first place, gold is strikingly beautiful. It has captured people’s eyes for thousands of years. That’s why people all over the world love to wear gold. About 44 percent of gold demand is for jewelry production. About 1,550 tons of gold were used in jewelry fabrication last year.
But gold isn’t just pretty. As we’ve seen with the space helmet, the metal’s inherent physical and chemical properties make it useful in many industrial and technological applications.
This is why we see gold increasingly used in the tech sector. In fact, gold would probably be used even more if it weren’t so rare and expensive.
Last year, the tech sector used 228 tonnes of gold, mostly in electronics. That’s because gold has excellent electrical conductivity and, unlike silver, doesn’t corrode. It is also malleable, making it excellent for tiny, precise connections.
The point is that gold is far from useless.
But fundamentally, gold is money. And everybody wants to have money — especially real money.
Photo courtesy of Axiom Space
Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for Money Metals with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.
