Incredible New Nanothreads Could Help Us Build a Space Elevator

[unhappycamper]

http://io9.com/incredible-new-nanothreads-could-help-us-build-a-space-1637719985?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_twitter&utm_source=io9_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Incredible New Nanothreads Could Help Us Build a Space Elevator
George Dvorsky
Yesterday 2:40pm

Engineers looking for a material strong enough to support the tremendous forces exerted by a space elevator will want to pay attention to this remarkable new breakthrough. Researchers have weaved microscopically small diamonds into ultra-thin nanothreads.

Remarkably, the never-before-seen structure appears to be stronger and stiffer than today's nanotubes. The breakthrough was made by John Badding and his team at Penn State University, the results of which now appear at Nature Materials.

At the heart of the nanothreads are a long, thin strand of carbon atoms that are arranged like the fundamental unit of a diamond's structure — zig-zag "cychlohexane" rings of six carbon atoms bound together, in which each carbon is surrounded by others in the strong triangular-pyramid shape of a tetrahedron. This is the first team to coax molecules containing carbon atoms to form the strong tetrahedron shape and then link them together end-to-end to form a long, thin nanothread. The structure may also be the first member of a new class of diamond-like nanomaterials based on a strong tetrahedral core.

"It is as if an incredible jeweler has strung together the smallest possible diamonds into a long miniature necklace," Badding said in a press release. "Because this thread is diamond at heart, we expect that it will prove to be extraordinarily stiff, extraordinarily strong, and extraordinarily useful."

[loudsue]

1. Mind blowing. just wow.

[unhappycamper]

2. The nanothread pics from the article did not show up on this thread.

You can see them at the article link.

[pipoman]

3. ...

[drm604]

4. This could also lead to light but strong vehicles and aircraft

which could save a lot of energy.

[tridim]

5. Awesome, but I still don't think it's possible to deploy a space elevator

Dropping it from orbit is out of the question and pulling it up to orbit isn't possible.

It sounds like a wonderful thing, but can it be done?

[phantom power]

6. Actually, the plan is exactly to "drop" it from orbit, although it's more like "unspool it"

[tridim]

7. It seems deceptively simple, but how do we get it up there to drop it?

Just the ribbon will weigh several tons, and the ribbon is only a small part of what needs to be tethered (there will likely be several ribbons, or even loops of ribbon), we will also need cabling for power and communications. The entire elevator would need to be launched into orbit somehow. I just don't see it.

And then if we somehow manage that, what happens when it drops and starts to be affected by the jet stream? IMO deploying this thing would be the scariest project humans have ever undertaken.

I've read all the current solutions, but nobody ever addresses these important details.

Here's an interesting solution using two satellites at different altitudes:
http://spaceelevatorwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Construction_Deployment

Watch the videos to see how complex and scary a deployment drop would be.

[phantom power]

8. Liftport used to have an FAQ about such questions

The plan as they originally conceived it was something like this:

1) launch one ribbon, with unspooling mechanism, into orbit.
2) unspool the ribbon down to an anchor at earth surface, and tether it.
3) once you have one ribbon, you can start using that to get more hardware into orbit, as desired. Larger facilities are added, one ribbon at a time.

As I recall, there is no hardware for power or communications. Power and comm are beamed via laser.

If a ribbon broke, it would not be a huge disaster. If it was the only ribbon holding the counterweight, you'd lose the counterweight to solar orbit. Anything attached would either enter free orbit around the earth, or go into reentry. Either case is something that can and does occasionally happen to failed satellites now.

[cstanleytech]

9. So in essence they will build it kinda like how an orb-weaver spider starts a web by

dropping down with a main line and going from there? Makes sense though I wonder how long it would take them to build it not to mention all the potential security issues.