XPost: rec.arts.sf.science   
   From: throopw@sheol.org   
      
   : John Schilling    
   : Believing the original poster's question to be unanswerable with the   
   : present state of the art, on account of one of the necessary   
   : components of a future nanotube structural material being yet   
   : unobtained, I told him that his question could not be answered on   
   : account of one of the necessary components of a future nanotube   
   : structural material was unobtanium.   
      
   But "unobtainium" is something that (in some crucial aspect)   
   *cannot* be obtained, not that it just *hasn't* been obtained yet.   
   So calling a nanotube matric "unobtainium" is stretching the word   
   all out of recognition.  Scrith is unobtainium.  A synthetic two   
   or ten times as strong as steel, or even "macroscopically as strong   
   as nanotubes", not so much.   
      
   Or put it this way.  Unobtanium isn't really proper to use   
   of things that are simply a Small Matter of Engineering.   
   It's more Crazy Eddy in nature.   
      
   Ah well.   
      
      
   Wayne Throop   throopw@sheol.org   http://sheol.org/throopw   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)