Man, this aerogel that NASA is using is some crazy stuff:
“At around 0.003 grams per cubic centimeter of material — only about three times as dense as air — aerogel is pure silicon dioxide. […] Not only is it the least dense solid in existence, it is also such a remarkable insulator that a layer of it surrounds the most vital electronics on the Mars rover Spirit. But the most striking feature, at least to the naked eye, is that up close, the cube looks like a blurry hologram.
“In the 1980’s, [NASA’s] Dr. [Peter] Tsou and others began to work with the material. “It has 14 Guinness Book of World Records-type properties,” Dr. Tsou said. ‘It’s the lowest density of any solid, and it has the highest thermoinsulation properties. Though it would be very expensive, you could take a two- or three-bedroom house, insulate it with aerogel, and you could heat the house with a candle. But eventually the house would become too hot.‘
“Additionally, aerogel slows soundwaves to about 10 percent of their speed in air, and because it has such a vast surface area for its volume, its use as a filtration agent could increase the capacity of desalination plants a thousandfold.”
I would love to play with some of that.