Nanotechnology, they say, will be a $1 trillion market and they (whoever “they” are ) are probably right. For the best part of a decade we’ve watched the genesis of an infant market, which is pretty much “all nanohat and no nanocattle” as regards world changing innovation. Still there are a number of start-ups, and even one or two established products and companies. So what are they doing?

The Thin Film Industry

If you count thin film technology as nanotechnology and you should, because it is, then nanotechnology is already big business. The early applications of nanotechnology were a matter of ‘improving” substances and surfaces. So there are body parts for vehicles and airplanes that are stronger and lighter because of nanotechnology. There are self-cleaning windows that use nano-engineering to keep dirt from sticking to glass and even materials from which clothes can be made that will repel stains. And, of course, thin film technology is a big part of the chip business.

So in this stream of things, nanotechnology is really an extension of materials science – or boring old materials science – as it is known by its detractors like me, who are far more enthused about nanotubes than thin films, because nanotubes stand a chance of being really cool as well as revolutionary.

Nanoladders

Nanotubes are one of those things, like calculus, that were discovered simultaneously by two people in different parts of the globe; Iijima (of NEC in Japan) and Don Bethune (of IBM, Alamaden). Nanotubes are “hexagonal lattices of carbon, wrapped in a tight cylinder”. They conduct electricity, so it is entirely possible that we will be able to use them to construct computers at some point.

However they also have other properties. They are very very very strong and although just a few nanometres wide, they can be up to a millimetre long. That doesn’t sound very long, but when compared to the width of a nanotube, it really is very long. For that reason it’s possible to treat nanotubes like long stands of wool or cotton and make extremely long lengths of nano-string.

Could that be useful?

Brad Edwards of High Lift Systems, which counts NASA as one of its investors, believes so. He is hoping to build an elevator into space made from a paper thin nano-ribbon about 1 meter wide and 100,000 kilometers long – and, by the way, this is not a wacky idea. The elevator could be ready within 10 years.

High Lift Systems intends to send a spaceship up into space containing rolls and rolls of nano-ribbon, which will not actually weigh much even if, in total, it’s 100,000 kilometers long, because its very very very thin – worse than anorexic. When it reaches a geostationary orbit (where gravitational force is exactly equal to centripetal force) it will start to unwind the ribbon in both directions, going away from earth the centripetal force will keep it taught, and going down to earth, gravity will have the same effect. The huge ribbon will stretch from each to space and appear to stand up in its own.

All you then need is an elevator carriage that can then be attached and will be able to move up and down the ribbon. High Lift Systems believes it can move the carriage at about 200 kilometers and hour – the speed of a very fast train. It estimates the construction cost at $10 billion, but says that such an elevator would reduce the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 400

For more information on this visit AmericanAntigravity.com.