First Pure Nanotube Fibers Made

TheSync writes "Researchers at Rice have announced the discovery of how to create continuous fibers from single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT). The breakthrough was based on the ability to dissolve a large amount of SWNTs in sulfuric acid, up to 10% SWNTs in solution. At high concentrations, the SWNTs form tightly packed liquid crystals that can be processed into pure fibers. The Space Elevator can't be far away now..."

Comments

Heh

[smoondog]

The Space Elevator can't be far away now...

Unfortunately, it needs to be on average 35,000 Km away to work.

-Sean

How about a "moon leash"?...

[kommakazi]

Well since I've just recently been told that the moon actually is moving away from the earth (see this thread) we really ought to leash the moon to the Earth to prevent this. I like the moon where it is. I suppose it could double as an elevator....

Re:so a space elevator isn't next...

[A55M0NKEY]

Year: 2009

Place: Wal*Mart

Blotter: A bearded armed thug wearing a stylish black blouse was killed while trying to hi-jack the daily armored car. The purp was struck with a .357 caliber round which entered his chest and left his back.

Witnesses report that upon falling to the ground the woman's blouse was missing. Apparently, the robber thought the high tensile strength of Jaquline Smith's new line of clothes would protect him from any bullets. What he didn't consider was that the nylon stitches that held it together would tear and that the round would pull the entire blouse off his back, taking it in through the bullet hole and out a grapefruit sized hole in his back eventually ending up imbedded in the door of an Oldsmobile in the parking lot.

Police finding the round still wrapped in the pretty - if bloodsoaked, blouse, impounded it as evidence.