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Timebomb_42 t1_ixybj1e wrote

"We are still at least 10 years away from a material solution"
Aka: With current technology we couldn't make it even given infinite money and resources. Come back when graphene gets out of the lab.

Still pretty sci-fi, only maybe possible near term on a lower gravity body, like on the moon. But even that is still very far out from becoming economically and practically feasible instead of just technically possible.

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wordswontcomeout t1_ixylfas wrote

Graphene is out of the lab and be used extensively by a lot of private companies in battery tech and coating industries.

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MartianSands t1_ixyoda9 wrote

Yeah, but not for bulk materials like this. It was touted as a super-strong material when it first hit the news, along with all it's other properties, but that's failed to materialise yet because we've had trouble making anything larger than flakes of it.

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SpecificAstronaut69 t1_ixz1apo wrote

Yeah, I've got a earbuds with graphene-coated drivers.

The graphene performs the important task of them being able to say, hey, there's graphene in them in the marketing material.

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danielravennest t1_ixyrabi wrote

Right. Atomically perfect carbon fiber would be extremely strong, but no manufactured product is like that. Even if it were perfect in the factory, handling and exposure to the space environment would damage it.

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Twister_Robotics t1_iy03i2b wrote

No. With infinite money you could make it with the reinforced concrete. IIRC they did the numbers for that in the original paper on a space elevator. It's just completely impractical.

We could build one with current technology, just not cheaply enough to make it a reasonable investment.

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