Thursday, November 18, 2004





Space Elevator? Build it on the Moon First

"The problem then, and now, is that the material required to support even just the weight of the cable in the Earth's gravity doesn't exist. Only in the last few years, with the advent of carbon nanotubes - with a tensile strength in the ballpark - people have finally moved past the laughing stage, and begun investigating it seriously. And while carbon nanotubes have been manufactured in small quantities in the lab, engineers are still years away from weaving them together into a long cable that could provide the necessary strength."

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