534 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1939 



THREE MAJOR PROBLEMS 



This project clearly required the solution of three great problems. 



The first was, how to build a vessel capable of lasting 5,000 years, 

 and how to preserve it for posterity. 



The second, how to leave word of its whereabouts for historians 

 of the future. 



The third, the selection and preservation of its contents. 



Each of these problems was carefully considered. At each step, 

 counsel was taken with archeologists, historians, technical and 

 scientific men, hundreds of whom participated with Westinghouse 

 in the working out of this project. A Time Capsule Committee was 

 formed, which established subcommittees to study the various 

 questions relating to the plan. 



A subcommittee headed by M. W. Smith, Westinghouse manager 

 of engineering, undertook the solution of the first problem: that of 

 designing and constructing the Time Capsule. It was decided that 

 the best material would be a metallic alloy of high corrosion resistance 

 and considerable hardness, nonferrous (containing no iron), and 

 preferably consisting principally of copper, oldest of the metals 

 used by man. 



A new alloy of copper, known as Cupaloy (copper 99.4 percent, 

 chromium 0.5 percent, silver 0.1 percent) was found most nearly to 

 fulfill the specifications. Like that reputed to have been used by 

 the ancient Egyptians, the secret of which has been lost, this metal 

 can be tempered to the hardness of steel, yet has a resistance to 

 corrosion equal to pure copper. Also — of great importance — in 

 electrolytic reactions with iron-bearing metals in the soil it becomes 

 the anode and therefore will receive deposits instead of wasting 

 away, as do buried water pipes and other iron alloys. Moreover, 

 Cupaloy is especially resistant to corrosion in salt water. 



For reasons of strength and convenience, the Time Capsule was 

 shaped like a torpedo, 7^/2 f^et long and 8% inches in diameter. The 

 outer shell consists of seven cast segments of Cupaloy, threaded, 

 screwed together hard, and sealed with molten asphalt. The nearly 

 invisible joints have been peened out and the outer surface burnished. 

 The walls of the Cupaloy segments are 1 inch thick, thus leaving an 

 iimer crypt 6% inches in diameter and 6 feet 9 inches long. The 

 crypt is lined with an envelope of Pyrex glass, set in a water- 

 repellent petroleum base wax. Washed, evacuated and filled with 

 humid nitrogen, an inert, preservative gas, this glass inner crypt 

 contains the "cross section of our time." 



