Uses of Bulk Nano Materials (was beanstalks)

(Henry Spencer) :

In article ,
Sander Vesik wrote:
...the problem is much less daunting than it used to be -- it's
now a "not fully solved yet" problem, where it used to be a "maybe
someday"
problem.

I think there is a correction needed - the "not fully solved" still
applies
to using the nanotubes in fairly bulky materials, not thin ribbons...

Given that the nanotubes themselves are far thinner than even a one-micron
ribbon, any material technology that ties them together into bulky
materials should work just as well for such ribbons, with some adjustment
in the details of manufacturing. Even such a ribbon *is* a bulky
material, when the fibers involved are nanotubes.

(Well, with one caveat: life does potentially get more complicated if the
material technology involves first tying the nanotubes together into much
fatter fibers, and using those in a material.)

...The same conditions that make first-generation
beanstalks appealing -- ...
ultra-strong materials buyable in quantity ...
-- are exactly the ones that favor other innovative
launch systems too...

But surely any advance in nanotube composites will also translate into
ease for using such for building rockets?

Quite likely; that's what I said. Ultra-lightweight structures are useful
for any number of non-beanstalk approaches to the problem, including
rockets. Moreover, most of *them* don't require the materials in
ten-thousand-kilometer lots.

One problem I have with the person claiming that we will not have bulk
NanoTube materials is that they seem to think all research is for thier use
in beanstalks only. Ofcourse if this was true the amount of money and people
devoted to the problems would be few indeed.

However the uses of such super materials is so wide that tens if not hundred
millions of dollars a year are being spent because of the range of uses.
Just about anytime that today is done with fiberglass or carbon firber
structures could be done light and/or lighter with Nano materials. And a
number of projects that today seem to be at the limits or even beyond the
ability of present day technology become possible (IE a bridge link japan's
islands).

There is plain too much money to be made by the successful producter of bulk
Nano materials to believe that if it can be done that the method needed will
be discovered.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

Dear Earl Colby Pottinger:

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
....
There is plain too much money to be made by the successful producter of
bulk
Nano materials to believe that if it can be done that the method needed
will
be discovered.

And yet the ignition of single flash bulb could ignite an entire structure?
I think you are putting too much faith in a single technology. We need the
stars, but in our eyes is the wrong place for achieving them.

David A. Smith

"N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox :

Dear Earl Colby Pottinger:

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
....
There is plain too much money to be made by the successful producter of
bulk
Nano materials to believe that if it can be done that the method needed
will
be discovered.

And yet the ignition of single flash bulb could ignite an entire structure?
I think you are putting too much faith in a single technology. We need the
stars, but in our eyes is the wrong place for achieving them.

No, it will not. That bright flash needs oxygen to get the burning going.
You will not find oxygen available in either space or inside the resin bond
fibers together - no to mention the resin will act like a heat sink
preventing the rise in the nanotubes temperture. Check again, you claim only
applies to single uncoated tubes under a very bright light.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

Dear Earl Colby Pottinger:

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
"N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N: dlzc1 D:cox :

Dear Earl Colby Pottinger:

"Earl Colby Pottinger" wrote in message
...
....
There is plain too much money to be made by the successful producter
of
bulk
Nano materials to believe that if it can be done that the method
needed
will
be discovered.

And yet the ignition of single flash bulb could ignite an entire
structure?
I think you are putting too much faith in a single technology. We need
the
stars, but in our eyes is the wrong place for achieving them.

No, it will not. That bright flash needs oxygen to get the burning
going.
You will not find oxygen available in either space or inside the resin
bond
fibers together - no to mention the resin will act like a heat sink
preventing the rise in the nanotubes temperture. Check again, you claim
only
applies to single uncoated tubes under a very bright light.

This is what is documented, yes. And was totally unexpected.

Lightning strikes near the "cable", will induce sympathetic current in the
cable. The heating can delaminate your cable, delamination in an area that
is in full atmosphere.

Note that the coating you mention will act as an insulator, retaining the
heat, so that a second "event", soon enough, will get it even hotter.

The highest loading should be outside the atmosphere, but it will be
non-zero in the atmopshere. It wouldn't do to go drifting off... but then
we are not talking about shadow square wire, are we?

David A. Smith

In article 1sOxc.24554$1c4.754@fed1read06,
N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\) N: dlzc1 D:cox wrote:
Lightning strikes near the "cable", will induce sympathetic current in the
cable. The heating can delaminate your cable, delamination in an area that
is in full atmosphere.

The length of cable within the atmosphere -- especially within the region
where lightning is an issue -- is such a small fraction of the total cable
length that all kinds of special precautions can be taken there without
increasing cable mass significantly.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Dear Henry Spencer:

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
In article 1sOxc.24554$1c4.754@fed1read06,
N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\) N: dlzc1 D:cox wrote:
Lightning strikes near the "cable", will induce sympathetic current in
the
cable. The heating can delaminate your cable, delamination in an area
that
is in full atmosphere.

The length of cable within the atmosphere -- especially within the region
where lightning is an issue -- is such a small fraction of the total
cable
length that all kinds of special precautions can be taken there without
increasing cable mass significantly.

Sprites have been seen to 60 miles in altitude, and that is without a
"lightning rod". Other than not having any one carbon fiber contacting any
other, there isn't much you *can* do. Then there goes your strength.

David A. Smith

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
(Henry Spencer) :


In article ,
Sander Vesik wrote:

...the problem is much less daunting than it used to be -- it's
now a "not fully solved yet" problem, where it used to be a "maybe

someday"

problem.

I think there is a correction needed - the "not fully solved" still

applies

to using the nanotubes in fairly bulky materials, not thin ribbons...


Given that the nanotubes themselves are far thinner than even a one-micron
ribbon, any material technology that ties them together into bulky
materials should work just as well for such ribbons, with some adjustment
in the details of manufacturing. Even such a ribbon *is* a bulky
material, when the fibers involved are nanotubes.

(Well, with one caveat: life does potentially get more complicated if the
material technology involves first tying the nanotubes together into much
fatter fibers, and using those in a material.)


...The same conditions that make first-generation
beanstalks appealing -- ...
ultra-strong materials buyable in quantity ...
-- are exactly the ones that favor other innovative
launch systems too...

But surely any advance in nanotube composites will also translate into
ease for using such for building rockets?


Quite likely; that's what I said. Ultra-lightweight structures are useful
for any number of non-beanstalk approaches to the problem, including
rockets. Moreover, most of *them* don't require the materials in
ten-thousand-kilometer lots.


One problem I have with the person claiming that we will not have bulk
NanoTube materials is that they seem to think all research is for thier use
in beanstalks only. Ofcourse if this was true the amount of money and people
devoted to the problems would be few indeed.

However the uses of such super materials is so wide that tens if not hundred
millions of dollars a year are being spent because of the range of uses.
Just about anytime that today is done with fiberglass or carbon firber
structures could be done light and/or lighter with Nano materials. And a
number of projects that today seem to be at the limits or even beyond the
ability of present day technology become possible (IE a bridge link japan's
islands).

There is plain too much money to be made by the successful producter of bulk
Nano materials to believe that if it can be done that the method needed will
be discovered.

Earl Colby Pottinger


One of the great stupid things to do that I have seen recently is to
talk about nanotubes with cross posting to a lot of different newsgroups.

The real smarts and the pseudo-smarts get into wars with each other.

To a large extent, the information content of the messages is dwarfed by
the emotional content.

Really dumb thing to do, but then there are people who enjoy the flurry
of semi-intellectual activity.

I will read about a dozen more elements of this thread and evaluate the
usefulness of the time consumed in reading it.

Enjoy yourselves, as evidently does seem to happen.

sci.space.policy ...... ?????

jbuch :

One of the great stupid things to do that I have seen recently is to
talk about nanotubes with cross posting to a lot of different newsgroups.

Welcome to the real world where a single invention/product can affect a
number of people doing totally diffirent things. As it was I had trimmed out
a number of newsgroups before I posted. It is my understanding that posting
to more than three groups at a time is getting carried away.

Sci.Astro - Where the discussion started as far as I can tell.

Sci.Space.Policy - Where the discussion is make better rockets or can they be
replaced with a beanstalk.

Sci.materials - What is the real state of the art in Nanotubes.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
jbuch :


One of the great stupid things to do that I have seen recently is to
talk about nanotubes with cross posting to a lot of different newsgroups.


Welcome to the real world where a single invention/product can affect a
number of people doing totally diffirent things. As it was I had trimmed out
a number of newsgroups before I posted. It is my understanding that posting
to more than three groups at a time is getting carried away.

Sci.Astro - Where the discussion started as far as I can tell.

Sci.Space.Policy - Where the discussion is make better rockets or can they be
replaced with a beanstalk.

Sci.materials - What is the real state of the art in Nanotubes.

Earl Colby Pottinger


I think you show bad taste, nevertheless.

However, at least people who want to endlessly discuss this subject in
the sense of a disconnected semi-shouting match have kindly been
provided this opportunity for endless discussion over a whole bunch of
newsgroups.

This may be the real world, to use your phrase, but this "discussion"
actually will have almost no significance to any of the participants.

jbuch wrote:

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
jbuch :


One of the great stupid things to do that I have seen recently is to
talk about nanotubes with cross posting to a lot of different newsgroups.


Welcome to the real world where a single invention/product can affect a
number of people doing totally diffirent things. As it was I had trimmed out
a number of newsgroups before I posted. It is my understanding that posting
to more than three groups at a time is getting carried away.

Sci.Astro - Where the discussion started as far as I can tell.

Sci.Space.Policy - Where the discussion is make better rockets or can they be
replaced with a beanstalk.

Sci.materials - What is the real state of the art in Nanotubes.

Earl Colby Pottinger


I think you show bad taste, nevertheless.

However, at least people who want to endlessly discuss this subject in
the sense of a disconnected semi-shouting match have kindly been
provided this opportunity for endless discussion over a whole bunch of
newsgroups.

This may be the real world, to use your phrase, but this "discussion"
actually will have almost no significance to any of the participants.

None at all. Nobody pounding their keyboards knows nearly enough
engineering to do anything but spout empty platitudes. Nobody knows
enough chemistry or physics to do anything but spout science fiction.

A 22,000-mile long suspension bridge that absoltuely may not be
electrically conductive, whose weight is at the very edge of its
tensile strength in any imaginable configuration, that will be
subjected to raw solar UV and multiple-MeV charged particles from the
inner van Allen belt plus LEO particulates at 5 miles/second... and
whose immense mass must be transported into orbit by a modality not
even imaginable is ridiculous.

Uncle Al has flown a parasail kite on 3000 feet of monofilament during
a Santa Ana wind in Southern California. Nobody in this sorry chicken
cackling knows a thing about long tethers in the real world.

What will a beanstalk's extension to failure be? If it is at all
elastic it will be a 22,300 mile long bucking bronco. It will be
insane. 1% elongation is 223 miles. It cannot be built at all unless
it is tapered. If it is tapered it will propagate and concentrate
momentum like a well-made whip.

Hauling up a kilogram payload is ludicous. Hauling up a tonne payload
is still major silly - and it will not be in freefall orbit until it
reaches the far end. Slide your finger down a guitar fingerboard.
There will be mechanical resonances. Shining a laser onto solar cells
is beneath contempt as an energy transfer modality to the elevator.
An acre of solar cells brings up the Space Scuttle fallacy - 120
tonnes of vehicle with a piddling small net payload.

Hey stooopids, what is your overdesign safety factor? A tensile
strength of ten tonnes/mm^2 just to build the sill thing won't build
it. You'd like at least 100% overdesign if it is supposed to stick
around for a decade or two. **** happens. You are already dead in
the water.


--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!