Obligatory quote from It's a Wonderful Life:
George Bailey: What do you want, Mary? Do you
want the moon? If you want it, I'll throw a
lasso around it and pull it down for you. Hey!
That's a pretty good idea! I'll give you the
moon, Mary.
Mary: I'll take it! Then what?
George Bailey: Well, then you can swallow it, and
it'll all dissolve see, and the moonbeams would
shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the
ends of your hair... am I talking too much?
Seriously, you could put a terminal at the Earth-
moon L1 Lagrange point, but that's closer to the moon
than it is to Earth. The pole idea might work.
It wouldn't come close to crossing paths with any
space-elevators that way too. I'm sure this crazy
idea will fizzle for some other practical reason,
though. To be replaced by something even crazier,
no doubt.
--Mark
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Has anyone heard of this idea before? How would it
> work? The Moon doesn’t
> revolve around the Earth at the same rate the Earth
> rotates, so how could
> such a cable be attached? (Through some sort of
> swiveling mechanism at the
> north or south poles, perhaps?) Would there be a
> danger of this cable
> getting tangled up with some Space Elevator cables
> that may have previously
> been built between the Earth’s Equator and
> synchronous orbit? If the cables
> got tangled, could they pull the Earth and Moon into
> each other? :-)
>
>
>
> John Sheff
> Cambridge, MA 02139
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of LARRY
> KLAES
> Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 9:59 AM
> To: setipublic
> Cc: BioAstro; europa
> Subject: Nanotube cable will connect Earth and Luna
>
> "NANOTUBE CABLE WILL CONNECT THE EARTH AND THE MOON"
>
> Andrew Yee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> InformNauka (Informscience) Agency
> Moscow, Russia
>
> Contact:
>
> A.N. Redkin
> or
> L.V. Maliarevich
> Institute of Problems of Microelectronics Technology
> and
> Extra Pure Materials
> Russian Academy of Sciences
> Chernogolovka, Moscow Region
> + 7 (095)962-80-74, + 7 (095)962-80-47
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> 14.11.2003
>
> THE NANOTUBE CABLE WILL CONNECT THE EARTH AND THE
> MOON
>
> Researchers from the Institute of Problems of
> Microelectronics Technology
> and
> Extra Pure Materials (Russian Academy of Sciences)
> have designed and tested
> a
> new device for production of a new promising
> material -- nanotubes. The
> researchers believe that it is exactly the material
> a transport cable can be
> produced of to connect the Moon and the Earth.
>
> Back at the beginning of the last century, the idea
> was born to build a
> transport cable between the Earth and the Moon to
> deliver goods from our
> planet
> to the Moon. Until recently, there has been no
> material enabling to make
> this
> idea a reality. Polymers would not stand cosmic
> radiation, and the steel
> cable
> would have enormous weight. The most durable
> material as of today -- Spectra
> 1000 -- would allow to produce a cable of only 315
> kilometers long, as the
> longer cable is simply unable to bear its own
> weight.
>
> Carbonic nanotubes would very well suit the role of
> a structural material
> for
> such a cable. According to the researchers'
> estimates, a lightweight cable
> of
> required length can be produced from this material,
> the cable being 50 times
> stronger than the current most durable materials.
> The problem is that the
> researchers have not learned yet to produce high
> quality nanotubes in large
> quantities: that is either too expensive or feasible
> only in the laboratory
> environment. Therefore, this material is still
> pretty exotic, its price
> varying
> from $60 through $100 per gram.
>
> The scientists from Chernogolovka have designed a
> device that allows to
> produce
> pretty large amounts of high quality nanotubes. The
> device is based on a
> rather
> simple scheme: spirit, glycerin or their mixture
> gets from a specially
> cooled
> chamber into the zone of graphite heater bar, where
> the temperature reaches
> 1000-2000 degrees C. That results in ultraspeed
> heating and substance
> combustion. The products precipitate on a special
> carbonic glass bell
> covering
> the device, or they are removed outside together
> with vapors and gases, thus
> allowing to protect the product from various
> unnecessary impacts.
>
> Precipitations of such kind normally contain
> amorphous carbon, soot and
> various
> particles covered by a shell of carbon, as well as
> carbon fibre and
> nanotubes.
> However, in this particular case the researchers
> came across a surprise: the
> precipitations obtained in the device turned out to
> contain only nanotubes
> and
> carbon fibre. No other admixtures were found. It
> means that a laborious
> procedure is not required for rectification from
> unnecessary compoments. The
> fibres are 30-150 nanometers thick, and nanotubes
> are 20-50 nanometers
> thick,
> their length being several micrometers.
>
> The growth of nanotubes can be accelerated with the
> help of catalysts --
> iron,
> nickel, cobalt and gold. 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.
>
> In principle, such devices may lay the foundation
> for industrial production
> of
> nanotubes. Maybe, a nanotube cable will soon connect
> the Moon and the Earth.
>
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