As for space elevators, no not really, long tethers are all about tensile strength relative to length, now the ability to use such a configuration with something like carbon nanotubes or graphene might come in handy but elevators are all about how well a material does when you hang a big weight suspended from it, at that scale, basically can a yarn-width piece of the material suspend an aircraft carrier from it? And we'd have to see how the material stacks up in terms of tensile strength. I haven't seen a listing for that yet, just how it handles compression which is quite amazing. I will cheerfully stand corrected if the stuff turns out to have a TS of tens or hundreds of GPa of course.
The material has no obvious use in the connection cable, but wouldn't an ultra light structural material for the orbital platform at the top of the cable greatly reduce the required tensile strength of said cable?
Meaning: What if that aircraft carrier only weighed as much as a speed boat?
New ultra-light metal invented.
22/11/2011 03:45:38 AM
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One discovers an already existing compound or alloy.
22/11/2011 03:54:24 AM
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Can a process be invented either though?
22/11/2011 08:30:17 AM
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Yes.
22/11/2011 09:03:51 AM
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By that metric, both the new process and substance are inventions.
22/11/2011 09:11:45 AM
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It is a big discovery
22/11/2011 01:28:37 PM
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Re: Space elevator application
22/11/2011 08:26:19 PM
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