3 ms·

We don't need kilometers. We need lots of 7cm nanotubes, bonded together with epoxy. http://images.spaceref.com/docs/spaceelevator/521Edwards.pdf http://images

• adrian_b 2y ago
  That paper only presents hope that perhaps adhesive bonding of carbon nanotubes could produce a cable with high tensile strength. It does not contain any experimental results supporting this hope, because only a strength similar to steel has been obtained. Perhaps it will become possible to obtain a higher tensile strength than with other materials by this method, but it is likely that this will require longer nanotubes and perhaps some other kind of polymeric resin instead of epoxy. It is very difficult to find anything that has high enough adhesion to carbon.
  • DennisP 2y ago
    Sure, the material had not been produced yet, and still hasn't. Getting all those long nanotubes to line up parallel is another of the hard parts. It's just a theoretical result. A key part of the design is for the glue to have a low enough melting point, so if the cable breaks, it melts on reentry and you don't get lots of little fluttery bits instead of a big super-strong cable wrapping around the planet.