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

Never is a heck of a long time

[WillAffleckUW]

And people seem to forget that carbon nanotubes were fiction less than two decades ago.

Now, if you said "not within a decade", that I might believe.

But in my world (biochem, nanotech, biotech, pharmacom, medical genetics, proteomics) we totally change the world every five to ten years, finding our former understanding isn't a fraction of the actual reality, so I wouldn't be that pessimistic.

I'd be far more concerned with the terrorist threat potential to space elevators than to the component aspect.