I know it's popular to be a millennial on HN and demand instant gratification of our short attention spans. But 20 years really is nothing for developments like this.
The article actually mentions a company called Levidian. Apparently, they produce thousands of tonnes of graphene per year already. I'm sure they are not the only one. Somebody is buying that stuff and using it for something. A core usecase for this company seems to be carbon capture. The founders of this company were involved with the ground breaking research that lead to discovering how to produce graphene.
Also, that's less than 20 years ago. They were messing around with sticky tape and graphite in 2004. The people that did that got their Nobel price in 2010. From there to thousands of tonnes produced per year in the space of 18 years is actually kind of impressive.
> I know it's popular to be a millennial on HN and demand instant gratification of our short attention spans. But 20 years really is nothing for developments like this.
> Also, that's less than 20 years ago. They were messing around with sticky tape and graphite in 2004. The people that did that got their Nobel price in 2010. From there to thousands of tonnes produced per year in the space of 18 years is actually kind of impressive.
If anything, it's a pre-millennial attitude - the 20th century was the era when people got used to astonishing advances every few years, and the space race was preeminent in this.
1957: Sputnik 1
1969: Moon landing
1981: Space shuttle
1986: Mir space station
To a layman who has seen the above, 20 years to develop a space elevator sounds perfectly reasonable and even conservative.
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", a 1968 book, was set in 1992, and featured sentient androids hardly distinguishable from humans and off-world colonies in (presumably) different star systems. So yeah, 20 years to build a space elevator is, indeed, a very conservative estimate by the standards of 1960-1990s.
The article actually mentions a company called Levidian. Apparently, they produce thousands of tonnes of graphene per year already. I'm sure they are not the only one. Somebody is buying that stuff and using it for something. A core usecase for this company seems to be carbon capture. The founders of this company were involved with the ground breaking research that lead to discovering how to produce graphene.
Also, that's less than 20 years ago. They were messing around with sticky tape and graphite in 2004. The people that did that got their Nobel price in 2010. From there to thousands of tonnes produced per year in the space of 18 years is actually kind of impressive.