New Power Cable - only $11 million for one meter!

[minn_male42]

NASA Funds 'Miracle Polymer'(The space agency is spending $11 million on one meter of power cable.)

NASA will pay Rice University $11 million over the next four years to develop an experimental power cable made from carbon nanotubes, the agency announced Tuesday.

The cable, also known as a quantum wire, would theoretically conduct electricity up to 10 times better than traditional copper wire and weigh one-sixth as much.

Scientists believe quantum wires could make spacecraft much lighter and more powerful, and may lead to faster computers and other commercial applications.

Under the agreement with NASA, Rice's Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory is to produce a 1-meter-long prototype of quantum wire by 2010. To date, scientists have been able to produce wires no longer than several centimeters.

"This is a small step but a very significant one from our perspective, as we try to develop new technology that will help us as we send humans out from Earth and into space," said Jefferson Howell Jr., director of NASA's Johnson Space Center.

The researchers have no easy task before them. To succeed, they will first have to devise a way to produce perfect carbon nanotubes on demand.

Discovered in 1991, carbon nanotubes are tiny, molecular cylinders formed purely of carbon atoms. They are created by shooting high-powered lasers at a carbon target. Each nanotube is just one nanometer in diameter, or 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Currently only 2 percent of all nanotubes can be used as quantum wires, and sorting these -- called "armchair nanotubes" -- from the rest is nearly impossible, according to Richard Smalley, director of the Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory.

Researchers at the lab believe they can get around this problem by growing the desired nanotubes like crystals. By placing "seed" nanotubes in a laboratory reactor and pumping in carbon monoxide, or some other source of carbon, they hope to create perfect -- and long -- armchair nanotubes every time. Twisting these together will then produce a quantum wire like the one NASA wants.

"This is not a straightforward applied-research project where we know it's been done and we need to scale it up," said Smalley. "We're going to do major pioneering in this process."

NASA hopes to outfit future spacecraft with quantum wires rather than heavier copper wires. Doing so could shave critical pounds, which would save money on fuel and, ultimately, allow the craft to go farther into space.

Some engineers have also talked about building a 62,000-mile-long tether made of nanotubes for a space elevator that would carry astronauts and cargo into orbit.

"As we look forward to going to the moon, Mars and beyond, (nanotubes) will certainly, in my view, be a key part of doing that," said Howell.

Carbon nanotubes may benefit other industries, too. For instance, in 2003, NASA researchers described in the journal Applied Physics Letters how circuit manufacturers might create faster processors by replacing copper interconnects with nanotubes, which are more resistant to heat.

Other researchers have explored using carbon nanotubes to build next-generation flat-panel displays. The displays might feature a tiny nanotube-based electron gun behind each pixel rather than using a single gun for the entire display, like traditional cathode ray tube monitors.

In fact, carbon nanotubes seem so versatile that scientists believe they may one day end up in everything from batteries to military armor -- provided that they can be produced easily and cheaply.

"There is a new miracle polymer to be developed," said Smalley. "I believe this is a tremendously important objective for modern society."

http://www.wirednews.com/news/space/0,2697,67350,00.html? tw=wn_tophead_3

[Bill H.]

Russ,

Thanks for the Article, and the Laugh!.............holy Fleecing of America! Another reason the U.S. is in Debt!

[scott0527]

Actually these are the types of things that I don't mind spending tax dollars on. 11 mil for this type of technology doesn't sound like much. 1/6 the weight of copper? Damn the real world uses of this could be endless. Wasn't teflon originally develpoed for NASA? What will be funny is when Monster gets a hold of it and sells them for audio!

[Champagne taste beer budget]

I second the endorsement of this kind of research. It's where many of the latest/greatest technologies have come from, and the trickle down effect seems unending.

What I want to know is, what happens in 2010 if thier theories on how to mass produce these nanotubes doesn't pan out? Do they just say OOPS and give NASA back the 11 million?

[minn_male42]

the saddest thing that we will have to endure (if this technology ever gets into mass production) is the audiophools proclaiming how this power cable makes their systems sound soooooooooooooooooooooo much better

[dodger]

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On 4/27/2005 11:35:13 AM Champagne taste beer budget wrote:

I second the endorsement of this kind of research. It's where many of the latest/greatest technologies have come from, and the trickle down effect seems unending.

What I want to know is, what happens in 2010 if thier theories on how to mass produce these nanotubes doesn't pan out? Do they just say OOPS and give NASA back the 11 million?

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We had a band in Rochester whose name could answer that: "Fat Chance."

[meuge]

Take all the armchair nanotubes and build us a space elevator.

Last year's space elevator conference estimated the build costs to be less than $500 Billion, and the costruction time at around 25-30 years. If you don't think that it's cheap, consider that the current cost of delivering effective payload into Low Earth Orbit is $35'000/kg. The space elevator would reduce orbital costs to about $200/kg... making it >100X cheaper to get manpower and materials into space. With such low costs, industrial development of space becomes a run-of-the-mill operation.

For those who ask why we need to develop space industries, here's a factoid - there's are a group of small asteroids orbiting the Earth at an orbit that's closer than the Moon. They are 10-40m in diameter and are made of nearly pure nickel, with relatively (to the way it's found on Earth) few chemical derivatives. The larger of these asteroids are valued at hundreds of millions of dollars... and that's just one example.

And like others have said, when the goals of the space program had previously been met, the biggest developments were usually unrelated not the ultimate goals, but the technologies developed in order to attain them.

As for the nanowire, it has tremendous applications even at lengths of under a centimeter. Nanotubes are single molecules, which means that this centimeter-long tube is actually a single wave function... making it an absolute conductor with theoretically no resistance altogether. There is still debate as to whether signals can travel faster than the speed of light down such a connection, and there is evidence that supports either hypothesis, so I won't get into other amazing possibilities.

[Tom Adams]

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On 4/27/2005 10:51:57 AM Bill H. wrote:

Russ,

Thanks for the Article, and the Laugh!.............holy Fleecing of America! Another reason the U.S. is in Debt!

----------------

Amazing...simply amazing.

As muege has pointed out, reaching a technology "goal" is not necessarily the sole purpose. The spin-off technologies created tend to have far greater social and ecomonic impacts. Look around you - there's hardly anything you can look at that can't be attributed to "Space Programs". Just recently we had a thread concerning fuel prices where someone mentioned fuel cells. Where do you think that came from? Look at modern day material sciences or plastics - again, space programs.

I agree with others here - in the grand scheme of things, I'd much rather my tax dollars go towards the space program where there's a certainty of rewards/payback for generations to come than to hand money out to a bunch of irresponsible, bad choice making, "oh woe is me - it's not my fault" people.

Hey muege - ever see/read about the plans to go to Mars and the technologies needed for that feat? I attended a conference in Florida a few years ago and we had a gentleman (a real live rocket scientist) come and give us a very interesting presentation about the Mars program.

Tom

[dragonfyr]

I have no problem with it.

The price has little to do with the 1-meter cable, but for the R&D necessary to develop the manufacturing technique for it.

As with most funded research for military and space projects, this topic keeps going around and around with few really understanding the process.

Let me give you an example.

I performed research in the 90's for the Department of Energy and Navy on a multi-faceted research project with 4 others; 2 from UC Berkeley, 1 from Ga Tech, & 1 from UT Knoxville regarding the "light scattering characteristics of small cylindrical objects". I didn't select the topic...in fact they came to me for inclusion, and it sounds rather silly.

But the primary focus was on "noise". And on the light scattering distortion effects/properties not only of diatoms and (here, I will freak you out, perfect helixes - of which octopus sperm are natural examples! See, and you thought this would be boring!) water molecules and dust particles.

Hmmm.

So while you all are sitting there and saying "what a crock" and before I tell you what I can regarding the purpose, let me mention a bit about what was involved...

The modeling involved lots of Mueller matrixes and lots of time 'borrowing' Lawrence Berkeley's Cray - the hot unit at the time.

And my specific involvement was in designing a 'frequency agile solid state infrared laser for use in resonance ionization spectroscopy" Neat huh! {Lest anyone care, in quantum, electrons can only be ionized (freed from their valence) by a quantized bit of energy A specific amount of energy. For unlike classical physics, where all you have to do is to apply enough energy to make something 'do something' (heat to boil, push to move, etc.) in quantum that won't work. You could apply .0000000001% less then the required energy, or 10^9999999 amount of energy required and the electron will NOT move. It has to be the EXACT amount of energy! That is akin to saying that if I apply 100,000,000,000,000 degrees C of heat to a cup of water, it won't boil.

Well, anyways, I designed a laser that you could sweep across a defined spectrum, where each frequency correlates to a specific energy, as in swept frequency analysis. One who's frequency/color/ and hence energy could be adjusted. Which isa bit ironic as great expense and effort has been taken to develop mode locked laser devices.

And with this device, you can sweep a subject with it, and as every electron of every atom has a unique energy level required to ionize it, the sample could sweep a subject and as an ion is created, the exact frequency/energy noted and subsequently the identity of the atom known. And while I have simplified it a bit (you think? ;-)), in the lab I got this down to detecting 3 electrons - or 3 atoms of material. This was subsequently reproduced at UC Berkeley where they had the really big photomultiplier (mine was only $350,000 'big' - just a TINY PART of the funding!) where they detected one atom. It is the most powerful analytical method for identifying basic 'stuff'.

(And a variant of this is , or was, being used on the Mars rover that ran around bumping into rocks and hitting it with a laser and identifying the elemental components...)

But, back to the main project... Using artificial intelligence and neural nets, we were able to build a library of objects.

And we examined the characteristics of laser scans of objects that were fed into this network. It was able to learn and to become increasingly accurate with each 'read'.

And this is pretty straightforward with clear pictures. But significantly more difficult when the scan is full of noise, such as when taken on a foggy day, or through dust such as a sand storm or smoke, or through 'dirty' water. Each problem environment presented different issues, but they were alike in the nature of the characteristics of that which contributed to the 'noise'.

So....we spent lots of money - you know, that wasted money , identifying the characteristics and developing methods to address the issues.

For what? A big waste of money you say.

Well, let's deal with what the immediate application was for. And I will say up front, that the immediate need is almost superfluous in the big picture! But unfortunately, that is all most look at when determining the value.

Let's see, lots of folks watched the pictures of the smart weapons after Desert Storm and marveled at them. Whereas I watched with abject horror! Not for the targets! But for the pilots!

It only takes a D student who didn't pay attention in 7th grade algebra a few seconds to plot several coordinates and to measure the time to travel between them to extrapolate and tell you where that plane will be in 3,5,10 seconds if it maintained that same course!

Oh, and they didn't make it very clear that the reason you were seeing those targeting photos, were because the missiles were laser guided, and if they had pulled the sighting lasers off the acquired targets the missiles would have dutifully followed the laser and who knows where it would have ended up. So while it worked great for televisions WOW factor, it placed the pilots and some very expensive aircraft subject to a high school dropout's math and a shoulder launched missile.

But I didn't hear too many complaints about this? Hmmmm. The silence was deafening! ...Still is!

So we were brought in. Of course we were doing basic research! Just looking at weird little water droplets, diatoms, particulate matter and determining the diffraction, refraction, reflection, etc. characteristics and determining ways to compensate for the noise in the picture.

A waste of time. And a BIG waste of money! Right?

Well, the Navy and Dept of Energy wouldn't be specific exactly what this was to be used for. And we would joke back and forth about our silly stealthy project.

But let's think about this.

The 'tethered' pilots are sitting ducks. What if you could turn unmanned vehicles loose to search for potential targets? And what if their sighting systems were good enough so they could see through noisy environments so that smoke, sand, rain, water vapor in boundary layer conditions (i.e., within 10-20 feet of the ocean!!!!! - oh, and what do they put 10-20 feet above the surface of the ocean? Oh, cruise missles! The guy from the Navy would only smile when I suggested that they might benefit! ;-) ), or diatoms in ocean water, etc. etc. could be compensated for, the images fed to a neural net, and the identity of the images determined without question?????????????????????

Think about it for a few seconds..... Need more time?

Well, you have the makings of a smart data acquisition system.

And I will let you figure out what the immediate implications are. Such as putting up unmanned vehicles, setting them to search mode, letting them asquire potential targets, and decisively identify them as friendly or hostile, and then either releasing to search or to strike with certainty. And while most of you will stop there and debate whether we should be dealing with that...I will go on.

But that is just the beginning. And it is also the bigger purpose of the research!

What if you could take this same technology and apply it elsewhere?

Let's see, allow me to present just ONE such application that comes immediately to mind...

I don't know how much you folks know about exploratory surgery and the biopsy process. But suffice it to say, that it can often be extremely traumatic to the victim, to invasively enter the body and cause all sorts of adverse reactions in the attempt to ascertain what is there. Often it is as bad or worse then the malady itself!

But, what if you could use a fiber optic probe the size of a hair to explore the body, causing little or no lasting trauma? And what is that fiber could transmit pictures back to a neural net and the effects of fluids/liquids, suspended objects, etc. mitigated, and objects such as cells compared with the known library of healthy and cancerous and pre-cancerous cells. And the acuity of the system to identify just one PRE-cancerous cell was great. MUCH more acute then a person rummaging around looking. Thereby allowing disease to be identified in a cheaper, more effective and less traumatic form, thus allowing for easier, cheaper, more effective and less traumatic remediation of the situation, and as a result MANY more lives being saved.

Do you still consider it a waste of time and money now?

Well, that absurd basic research paved the way for this!

The development of the basic process & methodology is damned expensive. And programs such as the military or space program derive their immediate needs. But it is in the secondary applied markets that the benefit is felt! Now it can be applied wherever it is appropriate, for the cost of implementation rather then for the repeated R&D costs!

Did you know that in acoustics, Dick Heyser's work with Time Delay Spectroscopy (the TEF analyzer), and Peter D'Antonio's work on quadratic noise reduction techniques (you know it as RPG Systems) began as military research. Heyser's at the Jet Propulsion Lab and D'Antonio's with the Navy? It was simply their secondary interest in acoustics that brought them over and applied them?

And >90% of ALL the major medical advances in the last 40 years have come from military and space research - primarily from the miniaturization of technology?

And research into many things such as "Star War's", whether it would produce an effective weapon, or whether it is even an effective need, MISSES the point! As in Star War's the PRIMARY research is on superconductivity! So what you say? If this technology can be made more efficient, and the costs reduced...what benefit would that have besides cheap MRI's???

Let's see. And I love this , as so many of the big environmentalists decry this military research as being anti everything! Did you know that GREATER then HALF of all the power generated each day is lost to heat due to resistance in the transmission network??? Hmmmm.

So if we simply developed an effective efficient delivery system, we could effectively double our capacity...Thus reducing the need to build new power generating plants, lessen pollution, etc. etc. etc.? Yet they fight the basic research necessary to accomplish that!!!!

Fleecing? Maybe. But you'd best do a bit of research into what the secondary applications are for the said technologies.

Oh, and don't trot out this or that isolated idiotic pork issue that I will agree should be stopped....As that doesn't address the basic issue I have raised...

OK - I'm off my soap box.

[dragonfyr]

Oh, and anyone remember the Goldwater and Kennedy commercials?

The ones where they appeared together and said they didn't agree on nearly anything, but the investment in R&D for the space program was one thing they agreed on?

Because investment in the space program is the ONLY program that had generated a positive return! Where for every 7 dollars invested, 12 has been generated. And those a figures from 20 years ago.

But I doubt we'll have to worry to much longer about this, as the primary R&D research is being assumed by China and India, and we are falling behind. And not only that, but many of the best are leaving to pursue research opportunities there. Not because of outsourcing, but because those countries have decided that their is a future in it.

While we sit around and still decry that we are loosing the garment & shoe manufacturing business! The business models have shifted, and its about time we modify our paradigm and look forward instead of looking backwards and lamenting the past.

[SteelerFan]

$11 million for a power cable is too rich for me, but one of those $500 government hammers is within my reach as soon as I'm able to save a little more cash.

[nicholtl]

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On 4/27/2005 4:57:34 PM SteelerFan wrote:

...but one of those $500 government hammers is within my reach as soon as I'm able to save a little more cash.

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Oh yes...I remember reading all about those how many years ago...?

[WMcD]

Fountains of Paradise could come true.

The govenment is going to spend the money anyway. Here it will stay in the U.S.A.

Gil

[kenratboy]

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On 4/27/2005 11:19:29 AM scott0527 wrote:

Actually these are the types of things that I don't mind spending tax dollars on. 11 mil for this type of technology doesn't sound like much. 1/6 the weight of copper? Damn the real world uses of this could be endless. Wasn't teflon originally develpoed for NASA? What will be funny is when Monster gets a hold of it and sells them for audio!

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Exactly.

Figure, if we are not having World Wars to develop these technologies, we can at least do them as science projects.

This is the sort of stuff we need to be doing NOW - as we WILL need it later for something.

[kenratboy]

meuge:

Play the computer (now X-Box) game Doom 3, pay attention to the story line of Union Aerospace, and you will know how good...or bad this will be.

Basically, Union Aerospace is a MASSIVE company that has a large base on Mars and they are developing all sorts of CRAZY machines. As you play the game, you see this stuff, machines that take raw materials (rocks), turn them to carbon, and then into water, steel, etc. Not unrealistic in the least!

However, that is the good...the bad is they are working on opening the gates of hell and they suceed

I feel the private sector will head down this road (not the hell part) and start to do the real hard work in these fields.

[timbley]

I hope it works.

[kenratboy]

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On 4/27/2005 11:06:33 PM timbley wrote:

I hope it works.

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Oh, it will. Just a matter of time, money and effort.

IIRC, Texas Instruments first DLP display was 100X100 HUGE pixels and there was not even a color wheel. Now we are at 1920 X 1080 in a few months.

Just wait

[meuge]

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On 4/27/2005 11:00:23 PM kenratboy wrote:

meuge:

Play the computer (now X-Box) game Doom 3, pay attention to the story line of Union Aerospace, and you will know how good...or bad this will be.

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I have... crappy game, interesting setting.

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On 4/27/2005 11:00:23 PM kenratboy wrote:

I feel the private sector will head down this road (not the hell part) and start to do the real hard work in these fields.

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Materials science is one of the most important fusion fields. I think that out of all scientific research and development, this one might have the most immediate relevance to our everyday lives... other than bio-medical, of course.

[kenratboy]

Yeah, I wish I could keep the flashlight out!

Anyway, the storyline (the videos and such) were really good. Stuff like 'Unlimited financial and material resources', 'Operating outside the constraints of moral and legal obligations', etc. Really makes you think.

[Jay481985]

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On 4/27/2005 10:51:57 AM Bill H. wrote:

Russ,

Thanks for the Article, and the Laugh!.............holy Fleecing of America! Another reason the U.S. is in Debt!

----------------

I remember when Carbon fiber panels were $1000 dollars a square foot and then $100 dollars and now its about $10 dollars a square foot which is alot cheaper. And remember the first plasma screens with the $18,000 price tag?