MUCH ADO ABOUT NANOTUBES

The concept of a "space elevator"—a cable that would tether a geostationary satellite to Earth and allow payloads to be raised into space without the use of rockets—was popularized two decades ago in two science-fiction novels written independently by Arthur C. Clarke and Charles Sheffield. In "The Fountains of Paradise," for example, Clarke envisioned the cable as a diamond-like fiber strong enough to support its more than 22,000-mile length. In the past decade, a potential candidate material for this cable has emerged: carbon nanotubes. Indeed, at the Materials Research Society (MRS) meeting in Boston early last month, chemist Daniel T. Colbert of Rice University, Houston, stated that nanotubes look like they may be strong enough to serve as an elevator into space. Colbert, who does research in the department of chemistry and the Center for Nanoscale Science & Technology, prefaced this remark by noting that a rope, or parallel bundle, of single-walled carbon nanotubes ...