NewScientist reported on Feb. 15, 2006 that LiftPort Group in the USA has built a cable for a space elevator stretching a mile into the sky and tethered on balloons, enabling robots to scrabble some way up and down the line. (the test was only partially successful as the robots only made it half way up) To make the cable, researchers sandwiched three carbon-fiber composite strings between four sheets of fiberglass tape, creating a mile-long cable about 5 centimeters wide and no thicker than about six sheets of paper.
The aim is to produce a functioning space elevator by 2018, with a ribbon built from ultra-strong carbon nanotube composites and to have solar-powered lifters carry 100 tons of cargo into space once a week, 50 times a year. Conceivable it could be used to bring back Helium-3 -a new pollution free fuel source that the Russians and Chinese plan to mine on the moon within the next decade.
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Walter Derzko
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