Ultra-thin Diamond Nanothreads Could Help Build “Space Elevator”

Forbes reported that scientists at Penn State University have found a way to make “ultra-thin diamond nanothreads” that could be used to build an elevator to space.

As quoted in the market news:

A space elevator could allow us to make it into orbit without the use of large rockets by sticking a landing pod into geostationary orbit on a long string tethered to the Earth. The problem with this great idea is that we don’t currently have any substance sufficiently strong and light enough to make the string out of.

The news outlet explains the process as follows:

[John V. Badding, a professor of chemistry at Penn State,] and his team built the nanothreads by stringing carbon atoms into a long thin strand arranged just like the fundamental unit in a diamond’s structure – zig-zag cyclohexane rings of six atoms bound together, in which each carbon is surrounded by others in the strong pyramid shape of a tetrahedron.

‘It is as if an incredible jeweler has strung together the smallest possible diamonds into a long miniature necklace,’ Badding said. ‘Because this thread is diamond at heart, we expect that it will prove to be extraordinarily stiff, extraordinarily strong, and extraordinarily useful.’

Click here to read the full Forbes report.