Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World

by Mark Miodownik

The concept, which was developed in 1960 by a Russian engineer, Yuri Artsutanov, would require the construction of a thirty-six-thousand-kilometer-long cable connecting a satellite to a ship floating in the ocean at the Earth’s equator. All studies indicate that the idea is mechanically feasible but requires the cable to be made from a material with an extraordinarily high strength-to-weight ratio. The reason why weight comes into it, as with any cable structure, is that it must first be able to hold its own weight without snapping. At thirty-six thousand kilometers long, you would need a material so strong that a single thread of it could be used to lift an elephant. In practice even the best carbon fiber thread could only lift a cat. But this is because it is full of defects. Theoretical calculations make clear that if a completely pure carbon fiber could be engineered, then its strength would be much higher, exceeding the strength of diamond. The search was on to find a way to make such a material.