From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Aug 20 2002 - 07:07:25 MDT
On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, Max More wrote:
> At 07:33 PM 8/19/2002 -0400, Harvey wrote:
> >How does this square with extropian predictions? I think it overly
> >optimistic. I would assume that other people expect the singularity
> >before 15 years.
>
> I would assign a fairly high probability to this project taking more than
> 15 years. I will be disappointed and moderately surprised if it isn't done
> within 25 years. Caveat: I haven't really sat down and thought carefully
> through plausible scenarios for the development of the space elevator.
I've pointed out to the people involved in this that a key determinant
is whether an enzyme can be designed to assemble carbon nanotubes.
The cost here is really the bulk material for the elevator and
the large quantity required. Its going to be expensive for a
very long time if you require industrial processes to produce
the fundamental construction material. If you can grow the
material on the other hand, it may end up being cheap.
Right now I'm of the opinion that an enzyme to manufacture small
diameter nanotubes might be very difficult, perhaps impossible,
but an enzyme to manufacture large diameter nanotubes might be
feasible. Ideally one would like to design a system to "grow"
the elevator using atmospheric carbon dioxide as the raw material.
Robert
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