What makes steel awesome is that the properties can be tuned across a wide range. Sure, cheap structural steel has a tensile strength of about 0.4 to 0.5 GPa a

What makes steel awesome is that the properties can be tuned across a wide range. Sure, cheap structural steel has a tensile strength of about 0.4 to 0.5 GPa and the most common types (i.e. cheapest) of "high strength" steel can reach 0.8 GPa. But... some specialty steels can reach well over 2+ GPa. The steel for some cables have tensile strengths of 2.0 GPa, maraging steel for can reach 2.7 GPa. There's a good reason steel is still so widely used. It's awesome!