The idea of a Space Elevator is fascinating. In this documentary they keep talking about Fountains of Space though I first heard about it in the forgotten sequal to 2001, called 3001. Same author though. And I think the Fountain book was older so that point may be irrelevant.
But that is kind of the thing. The documentary is supposed to be about the space elevator but as none has been built yet the filmmakers are stuck with documenting the efforts in building it. But since biilding it is stuck in the stage of material science the film itself gets stuck in an endless loop of "we basically need unobtainium, we think it's carbon nanotubes, but we can't as yet build even half a meter of the stuff". That's about all we got out of it. The rest is filled out with long stretches of irrelevancy, some schisms in an early company doing engineering on the subject, some kids saying it would be neat to build it etc etc.
I understand that it's hard to find new data to present since we are locked in by material scince before we can progress. But as it is, it feels like the relevant content of this 70 min documentary could have easily been summed up in a 7 min youtube video.
But that is kind of the thing. The documentary is supposed to be about the space elevator but as none has been built yet the filmmakers are stuck with documenting the efforts in building it. But since biilding it is stuck in the stage of material science the film itself gets stuck in an endless loop of "we basically need unobtainium, we think it's carbon nanotubes, but we can't as yet build even half a meter of the stuff". That's about all we got out of it. The rest is filled out with long stretches of irrelevancy, some schisms in an early company doing engineering on the subject, some kids saying it would be neat to build it etc etc.
I understand that it's hard to find new data to present since we are locked in by material scince before we can progress. But as it is, it feels like the relevant content of this 70 min documentary could have easily been summed up in a 7 min youtube video.