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Re:Space Elevators Are Possible by ohwp on Wednesday February 26, 2014 @02:57AM (#7303610)
Another problem never answered: Do we have the resources (funds and material) to create the amount of material needed?

Lets say the cable is 1m2 thick: 1m2 * 100000m (Kármán line) = 100000m3. Maybe this doesn't sound like a lot until you check the prices of nanotube-like materials.

Re:Space Elevators Are Possible by Sharlin on Wednesday February 26, 2014 @03:22AM (#7303678)
Your length is off by three orders of magnitude. Fortunately, the surface area is off by four. In the most serious proposals, the space elevator "cable" is a flat tape with a cross-sectional area of a few square centimeters. Thus, we get:

2 cm^2 * 10^8 m = 20000 m^3. Yes, it's a lot of nanotubes, but the price of nanotubes per unit mass has dropped exponentially for a long while now, and the economies of scale involved in building a space elevator will lower the prices even more.

Re:Space Elevators Are Possible by jccooper on Wednesday February 26, 2014 @03:12AM (#7303647)
It will likely be much thinner than that. But that is a problem. Most plans assume "once manufacture becomes possible and cheap enough". Of course, ordering that much (once a process is proven) will quickly drive down the price. Talk about scale!