Beryllium is one of the stiffest metals known, outclassing even the best of steels. Where a steel spring can be pulled and pushed and it will return to its original shape, a spring made out of beryllium would act more like one made of glass. It won’t budge even a tiny bit and if you push it past its limit it will simply shatter. Springiness is not always desirable and many engineering projects call for the use of alloys that have as little ‘give’ as possible. Sports cars manufacturers, to name a prime example, are ever in search of stiffer, lighter materials which are necessary for precise handling. A chassis made of pure beryllium would be ideal in this respect but would also be eye-wateringly expensive. Not just for the material itself but also for the difficulties presented in machining it.

Speaking of machining, our samples of pure beryllium - unlike any other we’ve carried so far - come from shattered machine parts constructed in Soviet-era Russian military labs. Coming to us by way of a Chinese lab we’re unfortunately not privy to what their original function might have been but cursory examination of partial threaded shafts, washers and the like suggest some kind of hydraulic systems. What kind of hydraulic systems would need to be built out of beryllium? Ones that held their shape under intense conditions… rockets! There’s no way as yet to ascertain these conjectures but it’s a plausible explanation. And wouldn’t it be nice in a swords-to-ploughshares kind of way if these were indeed recycled from nukes or Cosmonaut-carrying rockets?