Graphene space elevator possible?

A decent terrestrial space elevator could be built with a material with a tensile strength of 50 Gigapascals (including a decent safety factor), so this material may suffice.

Note that there is no prospect of having one 100,000 km nanotube - they would actually be much shorter (maybe 10 cm) and held together by the much weaker inter-tube molecular bonds (if the strings are long enough, they will bond together billions of times where they touch; if there are enough such contact points, the inter-tube bond can be as strong as you want.

Graphene uses the same carbon-carbon bond as the nanotubes for strength, so it would not surprise me if graphene could be used to create strong tethers. I think that what is really holding the terrestrial space elevator back is the lack of money for elevator-focused R&D on string materials. There is really no other market for these materials, and other uses (such as bullet-proof vests) are not close enough to


The real economics will come into play via electricity. Space based solar transmitting electricity down graphene cables solves our energy crisis basically forever. Once you build the first cable, building more is an order of magnitude cheaper. Once you make that initial investment, the solar farms become trivial, although it will take years if not decades to get them up and running. Inexhaustible, utterly green energy that can be scaled virtually limitlessly- thats the gamechanger for the human race.