Imagine wearing a latest fashion suit, which is made out of cloth weaved from spider silk fibres that are six times stronger than steel! Couple that with laminated underwear for extra protection. Then how about a tie that you can pull a car with in an emergency case? Women's clothes made of spider silks should be the ultimate challenge for rapists too. They are waterproof too and they might have applications for diving suits and space outfits too. The biggest problem would be a new demand for titanium plated tungsten steel scissors and needles to cut and sew the new material. Or perhaps only LASER beams of varying strength shall be used for cutting and "welding" the new material. It is too early to predict the implications that are so numerous that I have no idea where to begin.
The problem with "Spider Silk" is that firstly it's created with a concoction of enzymes and is also "digestible" with other enzymes. Thats how spiders can eat their own web or threads to then be reused.
It would suggest that clothing made from such silk wouldn't be very hard wareing. As for the reference of it's strength, thats mearly down to the chemical chain of the web in comparison to the molecule of steal with it's imperfections. You could suggest that the polymers of plastic already mimic the chemical chain and can be made more consistantly (If a spider had an off-day it's thread might lose integratey).
So I would suggest that "Spider Farms" for the creation of a material would not be a mass enterprise to sit and take note about, although saying that it could be possible that a singular specialist could attempt to develop a field (and notibly a 100% market share) in such products.
Spider and insect silks belong to proteins and the famous silk-road is proof enough that cocoon silk-cloth products are ancient reality and not just a futuristic hope. Nevertheless I am not under the impression that dangerous spiders (all spiders have poison glands) shall be enslaved to mass-produce silks. The idea is to mimic the molecular structure of spider silks manufactured from other organic proteins that are more available.
Take for example the wet-super-glue that works under water discovered from rock molluscs on seashore.
Those proteins are not only digestible but the animal constantly does that to move around when no strong waves can prank it out. The industrial technology proposed is to use soybean-tofu as the substrate out of which the glue is produced.
However, I would predict that genetic engineering would be involved in the case of spider-silk mass-production.
Research is already done and more is underway, so it is just a matter of time and not just a wild guess. _________________ Hemetis
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