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In part one of this topic my first post contained the assumption that plentiful and cheap CNT were readily available. . .
How realistic is this assumption in the near term? Can anyone really say how soon humanity will be in a position to deploy 62000 *miles* of carbon fiber filaments?
5 years, 15 years, 75 years, 150 years?
Should we hope for the best yet plan for the worst or should we pin our hopes on the certainty that cheap plentiful CNT will flood our world very soon?
*IF* cheap plentiful CNT will be here tomorrow - guaranteed! - *THEN* should humanity abandon all other avenues for low cost access to space and just sit back and wait for the CNT miracle?
On this question, I am reminded that fusion generated electric power -- too cheap to meter -- has been 20 years away for maybe the last 50 years now. ???
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How realistic is this assumption in the near term? Can anyone really say how soon humanity will be in a position to deploy 62000 *miles* of carbon fiber filaments?
*IF* cheap plentiful CNT will be here tomorrow - guaranteed! - *THEN* should humanity abandon all other avenues for low cost access to space and just sit back and wait for the CNT miracle?
Well, if you believe what's written in the space elevator book, and that "Going Up" newsletter that mentioned the 1-km fibers, we are on the verge of having this sorted out in a couple years. If you can make 1-km, you can make 62,000 km - it's just a difference in money.
As far as "abandoning" all other forms of space travel, it looks like the military is working on a deeply-classified Mach-12 cruise missile, and they did not rule out that they could be working on a hypersonic strike bomber, which would make an excellent technological base for a space plane:
http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030427070525.iyei5463.html
Also, I wrote an editorial which is published on SpaceDaily today:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03zf.html
I advocate that, instead of lobbying for pie-in-the-sky mars trips, we should instead lobby for materials and propulsion R&D, which could lead to cheap access to space in the future.
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Nice Op-ed Tim.
CNT are available now- companies and reseach groups are developing commerical applications for this technology right now.
The economic boom that this matieral represents to every industry makes me believe that the development and refinement of CNT is a virtual certainty.
Of coruse the CNT's neccessary for the elevator are still in the development phase, so it is a bit premature to stop research into other means to access space. Even if the CNT's for the elevator are made, their are numerous other hurdles that will be just as difficult to get past.
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100,000 km of CNT is not very much, at all. In fact, I believe you're looking at it the wrong way.
CNT is 7.5 kg/km. So 100,000 km is only 7.5 million kg of CNT, 7.5 kilotonnes. The Shuttle system has a launch mass of 2.1 kilotonnes. CNT is not all that hard to produce, either, from what I gather-it almost makes itself! And the commercial viability of CNT will make mass production inevitable.
But I don't see an elevator as a monopolistic entity in space access. People will want to get to space fast (in minutes, not hours or days), so the private launch sector (the Burt Rutans of space) will grow to meet the human demand created by the cargo capabilities of the elevator(s). Spacecraft will also have manuverability that the elevator would not provide.
So there is plenty of potential for the continued development of spacecraft in the appearance of an elevator.
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