Tim Queeney

Hmm.

And the reason why it can do this is that there's this material called graphene.

It's a very strange material.

And the way it's made is very strange.

But it's basically carbon that uses gaseous depositation onto a copper substrate.

And when the conditions are right, it actually forms these hexagonal rings.

They're all interconnected.

And those interconnected hexagonal rings use the strongest bond known in nature.

Wow.

But that's only one atom layer thick.

Then you deposit it again and another layer forms and then another and another.

And you can go to 26,000 layers, as Adrian Nixon told me about.

And this tether is incredibly strong.

I mean, it's unbelievably strong.

You need something that's capable of 90 gigapascals of tensile strength to do this.

And this graphene has been tested up to 120 gigapascals of strength.

So it's very much capable of doing the job.

The biggest drawback is that you have to have, it's a manufacturing drawback.

You have to be able to make a tether 100,000 miles long with no brakes.

So that's a little bit of a challenge.