Niobium silicide intermetallics (Air Force research)

Higher melting point (~2000°C) but unsolved brittleness problem; Tom's dismissive close ("I'm not invested in that one right now").

This figure was probably developed in 2004 or '05, and people were looking at niobium silicides and things like that, because they're intermetallics and have higher melting points. They're not 1250 centigrade as a melting point — it might be 2,000 degrees centigrade — but they're brittle as can be. No one's solved that brittleness problem. They say, well, we're going to eventually solve the brittleness problem in our ceramics. Yeah, good. I'm not invested in that one right now. But people are working on it.

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