Vectran

This is the fibre that makes Flywire technology work. It is a liquid crystal polymer and like Lunar Foam it was also originally developed for NASA which evidently is a great source to find super strong super lightweight materials. NASA uses Vectran for their current space suit and also the air bags that deploy whensoft landing a rover.

Vectran has definitely been around... when looking at Flywire i immediately thought of my fisher friend Tony and his fishing lines. I was right, Vectran is commonly used for fishing not only for the lines, but also for reinforcing the ropes and cables on the boats. Vectran actually has a TON of applications... bicycle tires, racquet strings, tape reinforcement, electronic components, hockey sticks, parachute chords, speaker cones.. just to name a few.

Props to Nike and their development team on picking up this fibre and using it in such a creative way. Design problem solving at its best.