Ten tiny fractions of an inch was the boundary where steel machinery became too clumsy for the cosmos.
At ten tiny fractions of an inch, the five-hundred-ton Harmonic Core hung suspended just above the iron-hard metal collar.
The four bronze pilot pins were deeply engaged within their guide metal sleeves. They held the sapphire titan perfectly upright.
Yet lowering a million pounds of quartz the leftover ten tiny fractions of an inch using high-pressure rams was fraught with peril.
Steel-on-steel high-pressure cylinders suffered from stick-slip friction. The inescapable physical reality that static friction was always higher than moving friction.
If a single high-pressure ram paused for a heartbeat before breaking free, the five-hundred-ton mass would lurch downward by a fraction of a tiny fraction of an inch.
Across an eighty-foot span, a sudden micro-jolt would act like an explosive charge.
It could gouge the diamond-lapped seating surfaces, crush the Viton O-ring unevenly, or fracture the sapphire crystal under sudden point loading.
