Alright, space elevator plans are back to square one, people. Carbon nanotubes probably aren’t going to be our material solution for a space elevator, because apparently even a minuscule (read: atomic) flaw in the design drastically decreases strength.
Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic Institute figured out that even a single atom out of place in the structuring of a carbon nanotube reduces the strength of the structure by dozens to factors.
And that’s a serious problem, since it’s very hard to create large-scale sections of carbon nanotubes without a single flaw.
Obviously, ensuring that a space-elevator sized volume of carbon nanotubes is totally flawless would take…well, it would be rather time consuming.
So either current production processes need drastic improvement, or we need a new strategy for this elevator.
Either way, back to square one.
[H/T New Scientist]