So, about that golden egg?

[unixronin]

Unless I'm badly mistaken, yesterday's announcement of a process for continuously extruding carbon-nanotube ribbon means we how have every essential technology and material that we need to build a beanstalk.  That's right, not the goose-and-giant type, the space-elevator type.  The process, developed by the University of Texas at Dallas, can extrude continuous "buckytape" up to 5cm wide at speeds up to 10 meters per minute.  Stronger than steel, weight-for-weight, but weighing only 30kg per square kilometer, it'd also make a hell of a material for a lightsail.

Arthur C. Clarke bet it would become possible soon.  Looks like it might happen even sooner than he expected.

(Article from jw1776 via technoshaman)

Comments

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

Light and strong ... I wonder if you can layer and weave it up into some form of body armor and/or vehicle armor.

Or even just light weight, but safely strong, consumer vehicle bodies. Seems like that might help with MPG for gasoline cars, and endurance for electric cars.

How do they react with petroleum and petrol products? Could they help with lining gas tanks, tanker-truck trailers, and tanker ship hulls, to prevent ruptures?

So many questions for a promising technology.

Seems like we're one step closer to the promised future. Bring it on!

[attutle.livejournal.com]

I don't think it has sufficient tensile strength yet.

Maybe soon, but not yet.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Considering it's a brand new process, I'd be surprised if it was 100& ready for production yet. And they don't specify what the tensile strength is, except for "stronger than steel" -- they don't say how much. Still, at least now they have a way to fab the stuff in quantity; presumably as they learn to do it with longer nanotubes, the tensile strength will go up.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

er .... 100%

[yndy.livejournal.com]

squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Just as soon as I can get back to the computer (post-dinner and the like) I'm so stealing this...

*geeking fangrrrrl glee*!!!!!

[juuro.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit hesitant of painting devils on the walls, but... Oh well. It is in my nature, I guess.

I'm not quite convinced of the workability of the beanstalk. Any structure that tall is subject to moderately immense external forces, e.g. from the atmospheric currents. Slender is right out. Flexibility would mitigate the forces, but it will also make for a ride that makes the wildest amusement parks look tame. Any rigid structure that tall needs to be a tower the width of a prairie state, like Clarke describes in 3001, to have the requisite structural strength.

Also, the space elevator is an excellent target for hostile activities. Damage it at one point, and you will have a rain of destruction over significant territory.

The beanstalk is a beautiful concept. It is just that I have a feeling it will not be quite as simple to implement as the more enthusiastic proponents seem to imply.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I would be the last person to assert there aren't still problems and engineering challenges yet to solve. Nevertheless, I've seen a design that appears workable and has taken at least all the environmental concerns into account, and buckytape would be an ideal material to build it with provided the tensile strength is in fact high enough. (I will note, though, that at fifty nanometers thick, it'd need a hell of a lot of laminations.)