5 ms·

Material science is tough. Check out engine/turbine material science developments. It can take >decade to get new materials into planes.

• enraged_camel 8y ago
  Yeah but isn’t that because aviation is an extremely highly regulated industry?
  • adrianN 8y ago
    Those regulations are there for a reason. Safety is important. You don't want your space elevator climbers to fall down. A ripped cable would also be a pretty expensive accident.
    • lugg 8y ago
      Imagine untangling it.
      • Yizahi 8y ago
        <spoiler> Stanley Kim Robinson has very colorful description of space elevator falling on Mars. Basically it should loop around the planet accelerating during the fall, likely supersonic in the end and flatten everything in its path.
  • marcosdumay 8y ago
    As a rule, the aviation industry auto-regulates first, and government regulators come later. That's the patter on most of the changes. So, not really. It's a highly regulated industry, but this is not the bottleneck.