Space Elevator An Impossible Dream?

bj8rn writes "Three months ago, the dreams of a space elevator finally seemed to be coming true after a successful test. An article in Nature, however, suggests that there's reason to be pessimistic. Ever since carbon nanotubes were discovered, many have been hoping that this discovery would turn the dream into reality. Pugno, however, argues that inevitable defects in the nanotubes mean that such a cable simply wouldn't be strong enough. Even if flawless nanotubes could be made for the space elevator, damage from micrometeorites and even erosion by oxygen atoms would render them weak. It would seem that sci-fi will never be anything other than what it is: a fiction."

Comments

Is that the only problem?

[irexe]

Sorry for being slightly off topic, but as a non physicist, I've always wondered why the other seemingly obvious problems with such a device are never really considered problems. I am thinking of storm type winds blowing it off balance or making it resonate, the danger to aeroplanes, the disastrous consequences of breakage, etc. Why aren't these problems?

Re:Now Is Never

[Andrew Kismet]

Imagine a spider on it's web; the web is torn at one point. The spider fixes it by producing more silk.

Imagine a small robot, even a nanobot, space elevator cable, made of many strands of carbon nanotubes. Imagine a way to pull carbon out of air and repair the cable.

A spider produces silk from the food and air it consumes; a nanobot could repair nanotubes in much the same way, by "breathing" carbon dioxide or pure carbon and doing repairs. Hell, it doesn't even need to MAKE carbon nanotubes, it could pick them up at "ground floor" and deliver them up the cable.

A self-repair system. No need to invoke convoluted biology and DNA.