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The Tether Challenge centers on the creation of a material that combines light weight and incredible strength. Under this challenge, teams will develop high strength materials that will be stretched in a head-to-head competition to see which tether is strongest.

Hmmm... Maybe molecular wire made from buckeyballs?

3 posted on 11/16/2005 2:04:37 PM PST by frithguild (The Freepers moved as a group, like a school of sharks sweeping toward an unaware and unarmed victim)

Actually the best present technology concept they have come up with so far is carbon nanotubes in an epoxy matrix. The problem is in the carbon nantube manufacutre arena, getting enough of those suckers in our liftime is proving diffucult.

Actually a composite weaved fiber consisting of Buckytube fibers mixed with carbon fibers show the most promise for so called "space elevator" materials.

Actually Rice University and some other researchers are showing promise in mass production of Bucktube fibers. Of course further breakthroughs will be necessary to increase the production volume and reduce the costs to where it becomes practical to build even moderately sized test fibers.

The good news is that there are plenty of other market applications for this kind of material and this will only help drive down the costs to where it needs to be to build a "space elevator."

I'm not worried about the material development, but I am concerned about the practicality of actually building and operating a "space elevator."