4 ms·

I love this. Space elevators are going to be here much sooner than it seems with carbon nanotube tech. :)

• mcv 4y ago
  Would be cool, but as far as I understand, even long, continuous carbon nanotubes wouldn't be strong enough to carry their own weight.
  • Sharlin 4y ago
    Not if the cable has constant cross-sectional area, but actual designs call for a cable with an exponential taper, and that would make a carbon nanotube cable feasible. With currently available engineering materials the taper ratio would be too large (~10^8 for Kevlar, ~10^33 for steel…)
• bluber84 4y ago
  And I thought the cable had to be made of spider silk hadn’t?
• Sharlin 4y ago
  There's not been that much progress in the 20 years since Brad Edwards proposed the first actually feasible space elevator design. It's difficult to say whether ultra-strong CNT cables are something that's perpetually 20 years away, or something that follows the "progress is slow until it suddenly isn't slow" exponential curve.
• amelius 4y ago
  Too bad someone will write an article titled "Will we get space elevators sooner than we think?" and Betteridge's law will prevent it from happening.