I’m pleased to announce that DeltaX’s own Lauren Deflores has successfully defended her PhD!  Dr. Deflores is now off to JPL to work on the Mars exploration  program.

In addition to that we’ve got some exciting new materials under development and some new methods that look promising for the competition.

More to come!

2 Comments to “Making Progress and Congratulations to Dr. Lauren Deflores!”

1. Zippy — June 10, 2008 @ 9:32 am
   

   To ask the question I really want to ask: Do you think we (anyone) will surpass the 40/50/60/100 gpa thresholds in the next 10 – 20 years? Is it possible, just difficult? Or just not physically possible.

2. ssteiner — June 11, 2010 @ 12:12 pm
   

   Hey Zippy-

   I think we will surpass the 10 GPa/SG (that is, GPa divided by density) threshold within the decade for sure and 20 GPa/SG is not impossible. Significant advances in optimizing the production of the yarns would need to be made. Prof. Alan Windle has calculated that the ultimate theoretical strength for a nanotube should be about 52 GPa/SG. Considering that practical fibers will be comprised of nanotubes held/tangled together, and also that Stone-Wales (5-7 shift) transformations can occur (that is, the hexagons reconfigure into pentagon-heptagon pairs in tension and the tube splits open), I think a fiber between 20-30 GPa/SG might be the upper limit of what is technologically practical.

   Ben Shelef has calculated a criterion that states the requirements for a space elevator based on fiber strength, and a fiber with strengths of 20-30 GPa/SG would still permit a space elevator to be built from Earth, it would just be very large and very expensive.

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