International Space Elevator Consortium selects polycrystalline graphene for 66,000-mile elevator
A team of researchers is closer than ever to building a 66,000-mile-long space elevator: think a super-strong cable stretching from Earth's equator far into space.
The secret sauce? Polycrystalline graphene, a material that is both tough and scalable, picked by the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) for this wild project.
South Korea builds 1,000-meter graphene segment
Engineers in South Korea just made a 1,000-meter segment of this graphene tether, a huge step forward.
If completed, the elevator could send cargo to orbit using electric climbers in about two weeks and even cut Mars travel time down to just 61 to 120 days depending on planetary positions at launch time.
But there are still big hurdles: protecting the tether from space junk and gathering $15 billion in funding.
Pete Swan is hopeful but says it will be decades before we see this sci-fi idea become reality.