Pole vaulting is a spectacular, dangerous sport. Modern poles could be drastically improved to make them more reliable, with healable tech being developed that could also be used in surfing and cycling.
But pumping up a solution decades in the future while dismissing a solution that’s practical now doesn’t make sense, and (per this coverage) isn’t intended to resolve any of the other points of failure. It (might) mitigate some of the fracturing if given enough time in between to cure. It won’t address manufacturing failures, it won’t address any out of spec use, it won’t address the fact that materials age over time (the reason that nearly all protective equipment has a finite lifespan before you should throw it away and replace it no matter how hard it was used). Giving a false sense of safety to a longer lifespan when it shouldn’t have one regardless is potentially as harmful as giving people confidence that poles that aren’t fractured aren’t fractured.
Por que no los dos?
Only thing worse than a sense of safety is a false sense of safety.
Researching it is great. I said that.
But pumping up a solution decades in the future while dismissing a solution that’s practical now doesn’t make sense, and (per this coverage) isn’t intended to resolve any of the other points of failure. It (might) mitigate some of the fracturing if given enough time in between to cure. It won’t address manufacturing failures, it won’t address any out of spec use, it won’t address the fact that materials age over time (the reason that nearly all protective equipment has a finite lifespan before you should throw it away and replace it no matter how hard it was used). Giving a false sense of safety to a longer lifespan when it shouldn’t have one regardless is potentially as harmful as giving people confidence that poles that aren’t fractured aren’t fractured.