DesertFox
05-22-2006, 07:57 PM
Jason Palmer
Nature
22 May 06
Is it possible to make a cable for a space elevator out of carbon nanotubes? Not anytime soon, if ever, says Nicola Pugno of the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy. Pugno's calculations show that inevitable defects in the nanotubes mean that such a cable simply wouldn't be strong enough.
The idea of a space elevator was popularized in science fiction, where writers envisioned a 100,000-kilometre-long cable stretching straight up from the Earth's surface and fixed in a geosynchronous orbit. Payloads, or tourists, would simply ascend the cable into low-Earth orbit, eliminating the need for rocket launches.
When carbon nanotubes were discovered to have an incredibly high strength-to-weight ratio, researchers hoped they would take the idea out of fiction and bring it into reality.
More (http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060522/full/060522-1.html)
Nature
22 May 06
Is it possible to make a cable for a space elevator out of carbon nanotubes? Not anytime soon, if ever, says Nicola Pugno of the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy. Pugno's calculations show that inevitable defects in the nanotubes mean that such a cable simply wouldn't be strong enough.
The idea of a space elevator was popularized in science fiction, where writers envisioned a 100,000-kilometre-long cable stretching straight up from the Earth's surface and fixed in a geosynchronous orbit. Payloads, or tourists, would simply ascend the cable into low-Earth orbit, eliminating the need for rocket launches.
When carbon nanotubes were discovered to have an incredibly high strength-to-weight ratio, researchers hoped they would take the idea out of fiction and bring it into reality.
More (http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060522/full/060522-1.html)