Discovery

Carbon nanotube research is a very active area with many hundreds of papers appearing in technical journals each year. In 1991 the first carbon nanotubes were made[Iijima, 1991]. These structures have promise of being the strongest material yet discovered. This strength combined with the low density of the material makes it critically important when considering the design of a space elevator.

The progress in understanding the properties of carbon nanotubes and their production is encouraging. Recently, researchers from the Institute of Problems of Microelectronics Technology and Extra Pure Materials (Russian Academy of Sciences) believed that nanotubes can be a material a transport cable to connect the Moon and the Earth.

The length of the cable would be 144,000 km if no counterweight were used[Pearson, 1975]. If the carbon nanotubes are grown in an aligned mass it may be possible to use a weak adhesive tape to grab an aligned set of the nanotubes. These individual sets of nanotubes can be offset and aligned with each other then fed under tension into a set of treads to hold the nanotubes in position. While being held, strips of the nanotubes can be epoxied to produce the alternating composite and bare nanotube sections we require.

If the surface where nanotubes are to be precipitated is covered with a thin film of such catalyst in the form of some pattern, then nanotubes will precipitate only upon the pattern, the other parts remaining clean.

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