[JonesersRX7]

If you do not know what carbon nanotubes are first read here to see what makes this so exciting. Here (QuickTime required) is a movie showing the nanotubes being produced in real time, realize they are not pulling out a set length, it's expanding/growing as they pull it.

Here is the page on the test.

More on the technology and what makes them so frickin' cool.

[BigVrunga]

That's freakin awesome!! I remember reading about similar technologies - in science fiction books! And notice - its private industry.

BV

[Boss_K]

crazy stuff....

[SJA]

Nano-structures are the future....no doubt.

[cable626]

Am I the only one who doesn't understand this?
I'm gonna read this again when I'm not so tired.

[doggzj]

Originally Posted by cable626

Am I the only one who doesn't understand this?
I'm gonna read this again when I'm not so tired.

Instead of rocketing out of earths gravitational pull, you'd just take a "lift" that is a mile high. This can be done with the use of nanotech. Without nanotech the materials just don't exsist that could do this.

Nanotech they are talking about is like building a human - billions of little 'cells' put together that form something completely different then the individual 'cell'.

[BodyWizard]

interesting stuff, Jonesers - wildly speculative, some of it totally groundless (and based on my familiarity w/ engineers, just a little frightening) - but fascinating.

I'm still waiting for the L-5 colonies, myself...and my jet pack, of course (and while we're at it, The Kitchen Of The Future(TM) hasn't arrived yet, either...and do we dare remind ourselves of The Paperless Office?).

But I've been patient on the jet pack thing for like 50 years now, and I'm starting to get backed up about it.....

[Bionic]

Yeah BW, I'm with you! Where the hell is my hover-craft and robot servant?!

[BMW]

where are the freakin lazer pistols

[JonesersRX7]

....

[Bionic]

Yeah and super-robots that would clean up train-wrecks!!!

[SJA]

Although the space elevator is a bit "out there", the fact remains that they are starting to "link" nanotubes.....this is VERY exciting.

[BodyWizard]

(*aw_shucks*)

sorry, Jonesers - I was eagerly checking out your links, 'cause an actual functional skyhook would be irretrievably cool...but:
I didn't see anything that described what the video clip was supposed to be showing, and the page that is supposed to be "about the test" (and therefore theoretically, related to the vidclip) is about a test of a climbing robot (*not* what's in the video), and the other links are the the same sort of gee-whiz, miracles-of-modern-science puff-pieces that once extolled space travel, electronics, artificial fibers, plastics and computers...and now, of course, nanotech.

hope you can see how that set me up for my earlier comments - really was not trying to derail your train!

honestly, I'm really torn on the topic of nanotech: I was around during the thalidomide years, and remember the kids being born with no skulls, or flipppers instead of arms, half their faces gone; I remember the godlike divine-right assurances and pronouncements from science & industry that never panned out or went horribly awry. I no longer trust scientists or industrialists any more than I do politicians. The potential for ruin from nanotech gone wrong exceeds the imagination; right off the top of my head, I can think of combining genome-mapping w/ nanomachines to create artificial toxins designed to eliminate (or render impotent/infertile) any organism that express certain pre-determined DNA sequences. That's some murderously ugly **** & I haven't even started - and there are people who cook up **** like this for a living.

so - yeah, nano makes me nervous, 'cause the folks doing the doing aren't very good at finding their bads before the harm is done.

on the skyhook/space elevator: it's a crazy fascinating idea, and really slick if they can make it work, but at the moment they have absolutely NO idea if they'll be able to pull it off. The structural obstacles alone are staggering, the margin for error is unknown, and the consequences of getting it wrong are catastrophic. Then there's getting it into place, *keeping* it in place...at this stage, might as well postulate a dating service for the monkeys that might fly out of my butt.

am I being alarmist? anybody know something I don't? what the hell am I thinking?

[BodyWizard]

Originally Posted by SJA

...the fact remains that they are starting to "link" nanotubes.....this is VERY exciting.

do we know this? on what scale are they doing it? is this what the vidclip is supposed to show? (not challenging you, just interested)

[SJA]

Yes....we know this. I'm confused as to what the video shows, but I do know that we have linked at least a foot of it about a year ago. When I saw the video, I was freaking out at first because I thought that they were linking a ribbon. But after watching it again, I think what we are seeing is a robot following a ribbon which is to be assumed is made from nanotubes.

[chrisrico]

What is that alien life form they portray on Star Trek ... the one where little machines create themselves. Looks like someone was profiting from the idea of Nanotechnology before it was actually possible. Personally, I'm waiting for a "replicator". Instant food and drink, clothes, who knows what else!