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China Produces Nano Fibre That Can Lift 160 Elephants - and a Space Elevator? (nzherald.co.nz)
Slashdot reader hackingbear quotes the NZ Herald: A research team from Tsinghua University in Beijing has developed a fibre they say is so strong it could even be used to build an elevator to space. They say just 1 cubic centimeter of the fibre — made from carbon nanotube — would not break under the weight of 160 elephants, or more than 800 tonnes. And that tiny piece of cable would weigh just 1.6 grams... The Chinese team has developed a new "ultralong" fibre from carbon nanotube that they say is stronger than anything seen before, patenting the technology and publishing part of their research in the journal Nature Nanotechnology earlier this year...
The space elevator idea has remained in the realm of sci-fi, physical and mathematical models because there has been no material strong enough to make the super-light, ultra-strong cables needed... Now, the Tsinghua team, led by Wei Fei, a professor with the Department of Chemical Engineering, says their latest carbon nanotube fibre has tensile strength of 80 gigapascals [over ten times more than the 7 gigapascals strenth NASA estimated to be required for a space elevator]... Chinese and Russian space scientists, for instance, are working together to find a safe, effective way to lower a fine, feather-light cable from a high-altitude orbit to the ground.
Wei also said his team was trying to get the carbon nanotube fibre into mass production for use in defense -- or to create super fast flywheels in a mechanical battery, which would have 40 times the energy density of a lithium battery.
The space elevator idea has remained in the realm of sci-fi, physical and mathematical models because there has been no material strong enough to make the super-light, ultra-strong cables needed... Now, the Tsinghua team, led by Wei Fei, a professor with the Department of Chemical Engineering, says their latest carbon nanotube fibre has tensile strength of 80 gigapascals [over ten times more than the 7 gigapascals strenth NASA estimated to be required for a space elevator]... Chinese and Russian space scientists, for instance, are working together to find a safe, effective way to lower a fine, feather-light cable from a high-altitude orbit to the ground.
Wei also said his team was trying to get the carbon nanotube fibre into mass production for use in defense -- or to create super fast flywheels in a mechanical battery, which would have 40 times the energy density of a lithium battery.
Replace streetlights with a reflecting satellite in a 90 minute orbit ?
https://www.theguardian.com/sc...
Can it take damage and how cheap and fast is it to produce? If a tiny scratch will destroy whole rope is it nit very safe
https://arstechnica.com/scienc...
While the authors note that this work could find a home in "sports equipment, ballistic armour, aeronautics, astronautics and even space elevators," we're still a long way from any of that. Ideally, rather than synthesizing the nanotubes in centimeter-long chunks, we'd like to have some sort of continual production process. Still, the work is important in that it hints that there is a world beyond micrometer-scale nanotube fragments.
Nice to have my instinct confirmed that there would of been much more noise over this if Ultralong meant kilometers or or at least 10s of meters.
how was it that first use case imagined for this fibre become space elevator?
aren't there more down to earth already practicable use cases, where this fibre will replace some other fibre because it is better.
aren't there more down to earth already practicable use cases, where this fibre will replace some other fibre because it is better?
Are there? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Yes, lifting 160 elephants.
imagine suspension or cable stay bridges made with this near invisible fibre.
Asian or African elephants, laden or unladen?
Quoting volume for a rope is not very helpful. The cross sectional area would be much more interesting for saying how much it can carry.
Why would you want to lift 160 elephants in a space elevator?
That's about as dumb as a publicity stunt like shooting a sports car to Mars in a Rocket.
Oh, Wait....
Nuff said.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Not on my watch. This looks like a job for: Space Force!
That even when the tech is ready:
"The Space Elevator will be built about 50 years after everyone stops laughing." - Arthur C. Clarke
Near-invisible, huh? Birds trying to fly through it, coming out in sections.. people brushing against it, losing fingers... yakuza vat-grown ninjas swinging fake thumbs about on a spool of it, cutting people in half...
This is right now, today. Almost. $90 million launches 63800 kilos into low earth orbit. That is $1410/kilo. Misty eyed space elevator proponents claim $500/kilo. Eh. Putting aside for the moment the probability that that is a wild underestimate, if space elevator launch is 35% of the cost of rocket launch then the capital cost of a space elevator will never be recovered, never. Not ever.
Don't forget that any mass you hoist up this mythical elevator needs to achieve orbital velocity, just like a rocket does. That takes energy. Where does that come from, who pays for it? Why does this fairy tale keep coming back? Now let's build a Dyson Sphere, it's equally as probable.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
You are aware that stress is measured in force per area, not elephants per volume?
Imagine the Chinese gift for hyperbole outrunning your common sense.
... would we do with 160 elephants in space?
Sadly, this is not even a joke. A space elevator will do more damage to the Earth than all previous events in the history of the planet combined.
According to "In Bruges" 1 American = 1 Elephant.
at lease you protecting yourselves from those caravans of migrants hundreds of miles from your borders.
The Uyghurs would like a subscription to your newsletter.
here is a perfect example of what happens when a countries pours huge amounts of cash into R&D and education
What, premature claims of groundbreaking discoveries? Don't worry, the USA has those too. Maybe not quite as many as China, but still enough to be annoying.
Chinese already did, in the Chinese sci-fi novel Three Body Problem, where the good guys construct something like that to cut a ship into pancake sections to kill the bad guys and recover something inside.
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
The real question is:
Do we call it Scrith, or Twing? :)
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Lots of these Chinese "inventions" turn out to be absolute bunk and cooked results.
Will need to see it peer-reviewed by a country that doesn't reward theft and falsehood in the hard sciences.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
how was it that first use case imagined for this fibre become space elevator?
It wasn't; the elevator is only for the elephants and they forgot to mention the turtle,
... now ! 'Cause this is the first thing everyone thought of, right ?
You can't space-elevate to LEO, because the orbital period is much shorter than the rotational speed of the earth. You need to get all the way to GEO.
I wouldn't get too excited about fantastic and amazing new developments coming out of China. From my understanding replicability tends to be low.
Probably because the fibre is currently impossible to manufacture outside a lab. Most applications can use other, cheaper fibres. Only the big dream projects like space elevators absolutely require something like a carbon nanotube fibre, so it's going to be something like a space elevator program that will turn this from a lab product into an industrial one.
Price to geo-stat orbit: 300 Euros per kilogram or less. Nice. We'd just assemble a massive spaceship and the first trip to mars would be an extended luxury cruise or something like that. Very nice. We'd be casually exploring the solar system and have a permanent residence on mars. Very nice indeed.
AFAIAC China should get right to it.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I wouldn't be surprised with the advances we've made or if there isn't already safe asbestos being made. But I'd put about the same amount of money in your venture as I would an effort to put nuclear reactors in backyards.
"Racism' to call B.S. on claims made without a shred of proof?
Especially if you're a pilot.
Ezekiel 23:20
It should be titled: China SAYS it produced Nano Fibre.....
E Proelio Veritas.
I hope this pans out....a space elevator would simplify access dramatically assuming environmental issues are worked out.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
I often wonder if this type of project is a result of "free market" vs "state run" research. A free market system can give you amazingly innovative ideas, but there are practical limitations to how big of a project any one company can do. Especially when it comes to projects that require deep research into "fundamental" physics, chemistry, or biology; that kind of research may not turn an immediate profit so is ignored by corps. A country like China, however, can direct billions of dollars over years into projects like this; the USA did this once with the Apollo project...but we have descended into a quagmire of hyper-partisan politics and re-routing any potential research funds of that level back to the .1% via tax cuts.
Have gnu, will travel.
I have long believed that a space elevator is unlikely to be feasible, unless under the auspices of an international body with no nation exerting control. It is really difficult to see how it could be protected in time of war, or even when the US, say, wanted to engineer an "accident" that removed China's, say, major economic and strategic advantage.
Of the several kinds of naturally-occurring asbestos, some already are safe. Just not the kind formerly used in applications where you want short fibers to make it easy to mold into things like brake pads, etc.
(Still recapitulating phylogeny with my first cup of coffee, don't recall which asbestos type is which.)
-- Alastair
The idea of the space elevator is constantly out there, waiting just under the surface. Any technology that seems likely to bring the space elevator closer to reality re-ignites the idea like a spark.
I actually think this makes sense, since a working space elevator has more potential to immediately make radical changes to humanity's future than most others (AI being one of the most obvious exceptions.) A lot of great stuff (and some crappy stuff, too) could come from a practical space elevator.
You could drop two cables to places equidistant from the equator (N and S, obviously) and have them come together at a satellite above the equator. Then one of your cables could be in a hurricane's path.
Hmm, if you put the satellite far enough past geostationary to get some additional pull, you could have the cables be of different lengths and maybe sustain the satellite north or south of the equatorial plane?
did you think about the fact that the cover would weigh more than the core?
I'm fairly sure- though I can't find the reference....
This is redundant research. The creation of this sort of fiber was first done in the USA around 2000. It's the manufacturing process which has not scaled up against economics. We don't know how to make vast quantities. Yet.
Also as I remember some resources were pulled from carbon based nano-fibers to research a diamond based product.
Again- pulling this from memory.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Well, it'd be money well-spent if it had the same marketing impact.
Nobody wanted space in the Falcon Heavy test launch mission, but after demonstrating the ability to launch heavy payloads to escape velocity SpaceX has established credibility for launching large, geostationary payloads.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If an elevator company can get the cost to orbit down to 35% of the market-owning competitor, they will ABSOLUTELY make back their cost of capital. This is not even accounting for your comparison of LEO to GEO cost estimates. If you could demonstrate technical feasibility investors would be bum rushing you to give you money.
Even worse, much of the cost of modern rocket launches is tied to marginal costs (fuel, personnel, pad rentals, etc.) The primary marginal cost of a space elevator is electricity (to run the winches). So, you do more to lower the unit cost by spreading the fixed costs over a larger number.
Elevators will be FAR cheaper.
Regarding the 'accelerate to orbital velocity' question, it's a little complicated. You have to pay to LIFT the payload, but the Earth's rotation will accelerate it as it ascends the tether. This steals a minuscule portion of the Earth's rotational energy, but you can add some back as you lower payloads back to Earth (the process works in reverse as you go down the tether). As far as the electricity to lift the payload, I would assume that solar power generation at the terminus satellite would be the best answer, but I have not seen authoritative analysis of it.
The most wonderful thing about the space elevator concept is that once you have even a small one working you can bootstrap yourself into bigger and better things.
That cable is a really small target. A better question is how long can you statistically expect it to stay viable? Whatever that answer is, you need to be able to either rebuild or replace in less than that time frame. Realistically, this implies multiple tethers in operation at all times, using tethers to make sure there is material on-hand in orbit for repair/replacement.
A bigger problem is exposure to elemental oxygen in the upper atmosphere and hard UV as you go higher.
Well, THAT is insightful. You should have logged in. That's a great comment.
No, he's wrong. The power to lift is absolutely at the terminus satellite. Probably electric winches powered by solar power installation on the terminus.
The problem is that rockets cost tend to be heavy on 'marginal' costs, i.e., shooting twice as many rockets costs twice as much more. Space elevator costs will (theoretically, at least) be very overhead concentrated, with very low marginal costs. This means that it is cheaper to do more, so everyone does more, so the unit cost plummets.
The acceleration to orbital velocity comes from the rotation of the Earth. As the payload rises, the tether swings backwards (westward) because the payload is moving too slowly. The lateral tilt of the tether begins to pull the payload faster. As it reaches the correct orbital velocity, the tether moves forward (eastward) and becomes vertical again. Operations will have to account for the swing and minimize oscillations.
On the other hand, this does provide some limited mechanism for the tether to 'duck' away from some orbital debris passes.
That is extremely insightful. Please log in. You are improving the discussion.
Almost
Well, no. No asteroids needed, thanks, although if somebody shows up with one that would be great. We'll send a starter weight up by rocket. Once the elevator is working we'll take up additional mass for building, shielding, and selling.
A stable loading area is a gimme. It will in all likelihood be inside a building at the base of the tether (if on land) or in the center of a large barge (if on water).
I don't know why there would be a steady rain of nano tubes from the tether, but it certainly will not be at the base. Anything falling from great height will move to the east.
We've been dealing with electrostatic forces for a long time. We'll deal with them here, too.
The van Allen radiation belts and UV, coupled with the ozone are the real problems I see.
As far as rockets being as reliable as other forms of transportation? Not even close. They aren't. Really. Go look at the numbers, they're not even close. And airplane level? That's laughable.
More importantly, even if the costs were the same, we would still build it if we could, because tether lifts do not suffer the extreme vibration and g-force loading of a rocket launch.
Bigger things, like wrenches and fasteners are probably beyond the current ability of our elephant based interception technology. Further research is clearly needed to develop larger and more energy absorbing elephants.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
Ok
Why are you assuming they're not alive, and that they wouldn't be returned?
Elephant space tourism would be awesome.
Still recapitulating phylogeny
I think you can qualify for a class-action settlement with symptoms like that.
I have 165 elephants, and if I need to take them up to the roof I still have to make 2 trips. I'm going to hold off until the technology gets up to the 200 elephant range.
Nobody actually takes any of this seriously, do they?
If you want a good story about a space elevator and what would happen if it fell, Read the book
Red Mars. by Kim Stanley Robinson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Safe Asbestos? We should tell the dead, I'm certain they would be very interested.