I wish I could figure out which small, public companies are going to benefit from this.

The first question, of course, is, "is it strong enough to build a space elevator with?"

ISTR that the SE folks said something about needing multi-centimeter tubes to have the strength/weight ratio they needed. Not knowing the physics involved, I can't do more than cheer from the peanut gallery.

I also noticed that the AP article that popped up this morning claimed they could be used as both solar cells and thermo-electrical generators; how does this aspect work? Both would have significant potential application in space power generation.

I like the figure of 30 kg/km^2. If it were coated to reflect sunlight, solar light pressure would accelerate this material at about .3 m/s^2 at 1 AU. Hit it with 1000x solar intensity microwaves and it would accelerate at 15 g (assuming it absorbs them).

That's the kind of sail performance that motivated Eric Drexler to do his original research into nanotechnology.

I would also consider armor; both body armor and light vehicle. Probably relatively to get a bunch of seed money these days.

The first question, of course, is, "is it strong enough to build a space elevator with?"

Here's a quote from an MSNBC article on this:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8976160/page/2/

"The authors also say that, with further tweaking, their nanotube sheets may be useful for building a space elevator tether. They’re planning to put the sheets to the test by entering the Spaceward Foundation’s Elevator:2010 contest."

Interesting. The MSNBC piece implies that this film isn't strong enough for SE (not much stronger than mylar), but that they think that they can get there.

Still, it's very good news for manufacturing, and means that we will likely see a boom in monitors and displays made with CNTs, including possibly foldable ones in the relatively near future.

Has anybody seen any figures on solar or thermal electrical generation? That's a big deal as the price comes down.

Finally, as to the armor issue, don't forget that CNTs can provide not just armor, but power armor. Orbital drops and mini-nukes aren't very useful for us today, but "a suit you just wear" tied to a network and capable of absorbing multiple hits would be impressive, indeed.

"The first question, of course, is, "is it strong enough to build a space elevator with?"

Three orders of magnitude short (100+ megapascal vs. 100+ gigapascal). That appears to reflect weak -- van der Waals -- bonding between CNTs, and few continuous CNTs stretching all the way across a "hold in your hand" dimension of the fabric.

One interesting application of a material of this kind is as a reentry drag device. At 30 kg/km^2, the reentry heating from LEO might be as low as 10 W/m^2. This means that if the device has good emissivity, it wouldn't even get too hot to touch. Perhaps an otherwise unshielded spent stage could deploy a sail of this stuff behind it and coolly float back into the atmosphere.

Carbon isn't going to stand up to oxidation from energetic atomic oxygen, but maybe a thin coating could get around that problem.